Comments on Rocketpunk Manifesto: Space Warfare X: Moving Targets

You might be able to use powered-down weapon laser...

2012-01-18T19:55:09.634-08:00

You might be able to use powered-down weapon lasers for comms, or at least components of the system, but I suspect that purpose-built comm lasers would turn out more convenient.

I don't know the power requirements for multi-AU comm lasers, but I suspect they are rather modest.

Having said all this, I can imagine that in special circumstances, warcraft might find weapon lasers useful for comms. And not just for sending an 'unmistakable message.' :-)

Rick - My idea was that you could power one laser ...

2012-01-13T14:35:56.074-08:00

Rick - My idea was that you could power one laser differently whether it is used as a comms laser, or a lidar, or a weapon. Not to mention that it kind of comes presupposed that laser weapons are their own lidars. However, weapon lasers require larger mirror apertures(or not, possibly, but I'm not too keen on long narrow telescopes) and handle heat better, so... yes, maybe civilian lasers won't be so useful.

Just how much power a comms laser shining over interplanetary distances needs, anyway? I supposed those would be well in the weapon laser power range, especially if we talk about all those tight beams and all. It seemed kind of logical to shunt all laser-related duties on a warship to the same set of laser turrets it uses for combat and just switch the power on differently.

And if those turrets are shot off, well, you can always stick a stroboscope out of the airlock, or revert to plain old semaphore with hull lights.

Why would civilian ships mount something against m...

2012-01-12T19:30:58.863-08:00

Why would civilian ships mount something against meteors? They can just use maneuvering thrusters to get out of the way, unless they're in a Star Wars asteroid thicket.

Kinetics could probably be hidden much more easily too, if we want to take this a little further - just a shroud or fake hull of some sort, as opposed to the much more difficult task of hiding a weapons-grade mirror or the radiators necessary to make a weapons-grade laser more than just a one-shot deal.

This wouldn't, in my plebeian brain, preclude someone from secretly modifying a comm / lidar laser for sufficient power to blind another ship's sensors though...

~ Ferrard

I forgot to say welcome to the comment threads! T...

2012-01-12T18:31:51.812-08:00

I forgot to say welcome to the comment threads!

The difference between weapon lasers and comm/lidar/whatever lasers is that weapons need a beaucoup power output (and all the secondary features that implies). The difference in power is orders of magnitude, so I can't see civil lasers being very relevant.

Kinetics seem much more suited to jury-rigging, since anything with thrusters and a control package can be steered onto collision course with a target. There are some devils in the details, but it seems a better prospect than adapting civil lasers as weapons.

Merchants would still carry a lidar mount as per t...

2012-01-08T15:00:03.411-08:00

Merchants would still carry a lidar mount as per the standard avionics package, one pulling double-duty as a communications laser. For that matter, how much power would a communications laser need? It hardly needs to hold a beam onto something for long, and I suppose diffraction hardly matters, or else lasers would be unfeasible in that regard.

The point is, there ain't much difference between weapon lasers, lidars and comms lasers, given that they have to use roughly the same output if they are to work effectively. Something nudges me to call this arrangement a Swiss Army Laser of sorts.

Oh. Not to forget that lasers make interesting countermeasures to those pesky thermal sensors, working like a stroboscope.

For that matter, would masers work as weapons at all, besides the obvious applications?

The thread isn't 'necro' if someone is...

2012-01-06T18:09:31.876-08:00

The thread isn't 'necro' if someone is still posting on it!

I'm doubtful that merchant craft would carry anti-meteor lasers, unless we're talking about ships with Incredible Speed. At ordinary interplanetary speeds the chance of a dangerous impact is exceedingly low.

For that matter, if you can detect it, a short thruster burn will sidestep it.

Military craft, of course, are a very different matter. I have to say that the expression 'Tsar-railgun' is wonderfully evocative! Shades of the False Dmitri!

Necroposting here, but I can't help to note. ...

2012-01-01T04:14:54.421-08:00

Necroposting here, but I can't help to note.

Merchant ships would probably carry a lidar mount or a laser for meteor defense, which makes refitting them into hand-me-down laserstars rather easy.

Tsar-railguns, for another matter... well, it generally depends, but an auxiliary kinetic cruiser would, as stated, carry kinetics in the form of rocket charges/torpedoes/missiles, while dedicated kinetic cruisers would be built around a tsar-railgun, launching both hypervelocity slugs and missiles equally well.

>> 800 tons to take out a whole orbit Just...

2010-10-06T14:42:28.197-07:00

>> 800 tons to take out a whole orbit

Just remember that frag isn't selective. When you take out that orbit, you deny it to yourself too.

The special case is very low orbits will clean themselves out in a relatively short period of time - but even medium Earth orbits can last for many decades.

800 tons to take out a whole orbit (if loaded with...

2010-10-05T06:16:41.984-07:00

800 tons to take out a whole orbit (if loaded with frag) is economic if considered with the alternative of sending Trillions of worth in Laserstars to do the same.

Bookmarking.

follow-up to my earlier post and a synthesis of wh...

2010-08-25T10:14:49.438-07:00

follow-up to my earlier post and a synthesis of what I've read in this post.

The laser equipped craft would be the work horse of the fleet. A laser can be used offensively, defensively, non-lethally (knock out essential subsystems, and even in a non-damaging way (dazzle the opponent's sensors).

Before boarding a boarding or inspection action a patrol craft (or it's big brother laser star) would perhaps dazzle the ship to be boarded so they can't take aim at the boarders.

In fact due to the delta V requirements, only when there's a substantial difference in delta V available (in favor of the boarder) would a boarding action ever take place. Meaning that Han Solo would never have been boarded by the "Evil Empire" unless he willing submitted to the action. Of course that cooperation could have been extended only as an acknowledgment of the 10 GW Graser pointed figuratively at his head.

KKV and missiles would only exist as weapons on makeshift warships (merchant cum warship) and dedicated strike craft (designed specifically kill other craft). Really they can only be used for one purpose and they leave an awful mess behind if they're successful (or they do not have sufficient V to clear the solar system).

So any defense of near Earth space would necessarily consist of a lot of laser equipped craft. ASAT/KKV might be used as trajectory denial weapons but should always be boosted with lots of V above escape velocity.

Which brings me to another thought. Among aircraft fighter jocks there's a saying, "speed is life." Among the space fighting force it would become "delta V" is life. Every aspect of space would revolve around delta V.

An argument might be made for high-g acceleration during the heat of battle, but anyone jinking with high-g accelerations will rapidly run out of delta V - killing them. There's an added expense to high-g drives too - the weight of the drive. In most cases this would be dead weight - further cutting into your delta V.

The only real use I can think of for high-g drives would be for missiles. Unfortunately an Orion project type missile STILL suffers from a minimum drive size and that is HUGE (like 800 tons!).

on boarding and combat in general... The first an...

2010-08-24T11:18:44.767-07:00

on boarding and combat in general...

The first and foremost objective of any ship equipped with DEWs will be to blind/dazzle sensors and/or scramble computer controls.

I don't think anyone in their right mind would try boarding a ship that hadn't had at least one of those things done to it.

As for the feasibility, I'd think sensors will be many orders of magnitude MORE vulnerable to DEW than most other portions of a spaceship.

Jim

Exactamundo. In a politically sterile environment ...

2010-02-11T10:30:41.621-08:00

Exactamundo. In a politically sterile environment - the classic battlefield, where everyone not a friendly is a threat/target - space forces can hit at Stupendous Range, and would surely fight at that range.

But once you mix in civilians or neutrals, the picture in the plotting holotank suddenly gets a lot more complicated. Physics and geometry become only the starting point, not the whole story. And to know who is who, you may have to get up close and personal.

I'm reminded of the old game Independence War....

2010-02-11T06:13:51.710-08:00

I'm reminded of the old game Independence War. For those unfamiliar, it was a "more realistic" space combat game that featured largely Newtonian physics and performance. (IE, cut the engines and you would coast forever, though I think it still had upper limits on speed. It's been a while). It had the usual bad science for a video game though: hollywood combat ranges, slower than light energy projectiles (particle cannon), and shields (although the shields had interesting limitations)

But, in that game, at the outset there are basically three kinds of combat ships: PATCOMs, which are the lightest class, and largely cannon fodder for the player class, which was the Corvette. Then large capital battleships rounded it off, but most interesting fights were Corvette vs. Corvette (IE, a battleship would hopelessly outgun the Corvette, and the Corvette would demolish a PATCOM)

4-5 man bridge crew, IIRC, with another 10-20 in habitable modules that were detachable.

Basic storyline follows imperial vs. rebellion plot, with players on the imperial side. Early on, the rebels are limited to the cannon fodder PATCOMs, but eventually acquire Corvettes and the fights get tougher.

Then an interesting little bit happens: the rebels develop a space fighter (bear with me for a bit). The game makes a point to declare space fighters useless, being hopelessly outgunned by even PATCOMs. They're the game's basic energy weapon, an engine, and a cockpit, and cannot be shielded due to size (unlike the PATCOM).

Why do I go into this?

Because the game unveils the fighter in a curious way: the rebels take over a cargo ship surreptitiously (at a port, no less), load it with fighters, and go to dock with some high value target. At very close range, they blow open the cargo containers, and a swarm of fighters starts a fight at extremely close range, where the player has trouble tracking them.

Now, I didn't necessarily posit this as a pro-fighter post (and in fact, the game then defocuses on fighters by turning them into unmanned drones from the player POV (IE, the player pilots them remotely or lets the ship computer fly them).

But it got me thinking about hollywood ranges and fighters again, as per an earlier post in this blog.

You know a ship is coming, but you don't know what's inside it...

Exploratory craft might be particularly well suite...

2010-02-09T20:24:17.488-08:00

Exploratory craft might be particularly well suited to war conversion for frigate-cruiser type missions. They have extensive sensor suites, long-endurance fuel tankage and life support, and launching racks, service bays, and control stations for probes, readily adaptable for kinetics or other remote weapons.

'Conversion' here may mean not just rebuilding existing ships for a scratch force, but as the basis for a design, MILSPECed as required.

But I'm not sure that there's an in-system counterpart to the general purpose exploratory 'survey ship.' Exploration in practice goes by stages, starting with probes, with human missions only when you already have fairly specific objectives.

I'd agree with Rick here, but with some furthe...

2010-02-09T05:32:47.007-08:00

I'd agree with Rick here, but with some further nuance that hasn't been discussed in this context here yet: Jon's Law, and an unnamed corollary that pops up quite a bit:

1) Any sufficiently powerful drive is also a weapon.
1a) Civilian ships are likely to carry devices that can be adapted as weapons.

1a is easy to envision for asteroid mining, for example. The only civilian ship I can picture that won't have a 'weapon' is the passenger liner, and potentially the cargo liner. But even they have drives.

The similarity or difference of civil and military...

2010-02-07T12:59:48.227-08:00

The similarity or difference of civil and military craft depends on a bunch of factors.

Some classes of warships will be 'built around a weapon,' such as laser stars. On the other hand, the design of deep space 'frigates,' intended largely for presence, may be more dominated by their space-keeping requirements, which are not unlike civil transport types. For example their ability to deliver espatiers in healthy, alert fighting trim may be as or more important than laser zapping power.

Especially if the civil drive produces ample electric power as a byproduct, thus a power supply for a laser, etc. Then it may be a (relatively!) simple matter of modifying the drive to supply plug power, and mounting a weapon platform.

High combat acceleration or uber coilguns pretty much require a structure built around them, but lasers are a lot more forgiving when it comes to space architecture. Especially if the laser armament is an important but not overwhelming design consideration.

I agree that purpose built space warships will be ...

2010-02-05T21:03:02.683-08:00

I agree that purpose built space warships will be different from the DC-3/Liberty ship model, I'm thinking more in terms of most polities not having big enough economies to sustain large numbers of purpose built warships.

On the other hand, if the commercial ships can carry weapons, then they will bulk up the fleet with "auxiliary cruisers", probably carrying racks of KKVs and a secure link to the military cruiser that is running the show.

If the ruling power is particularly cold blooded, the auxiliary cruisers run in the first wave of the attack and launch waves of KKV's to overwhelm any possible defense and saturate the enemy Xaser's targeting system, while the warship selects and concentrates on high value targets.

A follow on wave of auxiliary cruisers provides waves of KKV's for follow up attacks or to cover a retreat.

Of course wealth and your position in space can change everything. Earth has enough solar energy that huge solar collectors in the Earth-Sun L1 point could power a squadron or division of Xaser battlestations, forcing a potential attacker to think in terms of tens or hundreds of thousands of KKV's to mount a successful attack. Since the Xasers will be mutually supporting and have clear fields of fire over cis-lunar space and the inner solar system, Earth will be a difficult nut to crack.

Jupiter could have a similar strategic position, powering multiple Xasers by tapping into the planetary magnetosphere, and sheltering the Jovian moons under the rule of a single polity (you can decide if this will be a Republic, Dictatorship, Feudal overlord or something different).

Uranus can pull off the same trick using abundant 3He to run fusion powerplants for it's Xaser battery.

The rebels, not having access to large amounts of electrical energy, are busy squirreling atomic bombs away in the asteroid belt for their fleet of ORION torch missile buses...

Although I agree on Thucydides' main point, I ...

2010-02-05T19:02:06.487-08:00

Although I agree on Thucydides' main point, I do think most warships will be purpose-built.

Reason 1: Guns. Warship/crafts will follow the A-10 Warthog's design philosophy: Take a gun, and build a ship around it. Whether it is a laser or a rail gun, the weapon's characteristics will be dictated by "barrel length". This is not a situation where you can grab an off-the-shelf transport and strap a gun to it, but you'll want to build the ship from the "gun" out.

Reason 2: Engines. Commercial vehicles use the most economical engines, military use the most powerful, and damn the fuel/remass costs. In a world where VASMIR and torch drives exist a nice lumbering merchant ship will use a VASMIR, the frigate will use a torch.

Reason 3: Crew. Nowadays a massive container carrier or supertanker operates with a fraction of the crew of a frigate. Military vessels need to be ready to fight at the drop of the hat, the hardware requires daily maintenance, and the crews require daily drills. Maybe it's just a question of strapping a bigger hamster wheel, but I think the problem might be a greater engineering issue than simply adding an extra ring or making it bigger. This will add a lot more mass and cause a lot more stress, when the standard civilian designs will be designed with as narrow margins as the government administration will allow.

The opposite, refitting frigates into transports, might be doable, however. I can see a market for demilitarized surplus vessels.

The size of the fleet (or constellation) will be dictated by the amount of space that needs to be controlled, a few extra for emergency purposes, and a few more for maintenance, overhaul and refit rotation. Ideally one large ship (laserstar) for each major orbital space, a frigate at or near smaller targets (asteroids, moons, Lagrange space station) under the control or protection of said polity, a few extra at tension points (Ganymede and Europa belonging to opposing factions? Might want a larger presence.) Earth orbit will always have the lion's share, especially since the "shipyards" will most likely be in the Earth Sphere.

Some equipment is evergreen. DC-3 aircraft are st...

2010-02-05T18:33:36.459-08:00

Some equipment is evergreen.

DC-3 aircraft are still used in profitable service in northern Canada (and I mean real DC-3's with radial piston engines), the C-130 Hercules has outlasted several generations of aircraft designed to "replace" it and when the last B-2 lands in Arizona to be mothballed, a B-52 will be waiting to pick up the crew and take them home.

While it is hard to make a "one on one" analogy between this sort of equipment and spacecraft, I will venture some broad parameters,

1. The design is simple and robust
2. The design is flexible and adaptable
3. It is produced in large numbers
4. It is used by a large and varied body of users, who discover how to tweak the design for a multitude of special purposes.

The space DC-3 might resemble a design posted here: a pair of drums joined by a truss. The front drum can house the hamster wheel for a crew or cargo (or weapons and sensors) while the rear drum houses the engine and power apparatus. Fuel, reaction mass, lighters or auxiliary spacecraft and other equipment is attached to the truss as needed.

The basic architecture can be adapted for many different purposes, and the difference between a warship and a cargo ship might be a matter of what sensor suite and software is installed, and what exactly is carried in the cargo pod or on the trusses. Space polities will certainly welcome something that can be used as a "Liberty ship" or a cruiser depending on what the political situation is between it and its neighbours. A few specialized military ships are still needed, especially sensor ships and command and control vessels (your scenario can be tweaked to include Xaser battlestations, ORION torch missiles or the HMJS (His Majesty's Jovian Ship) "Surprise" to taste), but unless there is some sort of compelling political backstory, large military fleets are probably going to be a rarity.

'Laserstar' is very marginally original; I...

2010-02-04T16:41:16.834-08:00

'Laserstar' is very marginally original; I adapted it from 'battlestar' (even though I never watched the modern era BSG).

I agree with you about human decision making - in fact, really that is the only functional reason to put humans in space at all. Yes there are not infrequent cases where humans can kick a balky piece of equipment into action, but that is not why you go to the expense of sending a crew.

On the role of laserstars (to continue the appella...

2010-02-04T10:57:18.127-08:00

On the role of laserstars (to continue the appellation originated in this blog). I think it will be overall very similar to the battleship pre-WW II and the supercarrier post same, and the third-rank ship o' the wall for previous eras: power projection.

Like Teddy's Great White Fleet tour, you send it around the solar system to rattle your saber, as Rick pointed out. The laserstar is the kind of ship you'd need if you didn't have laserstars, in other words. Like the modern carrier, it is a symbol of military power (read: supremacy) and it is meant to "convince" other nations that war isn't such a good idea. That said it is still a viable weapons platform, probably able to multi-role as the command center for small-scale conflicts. From time to time it will have to fire its main gun at a low-value target (nuking a ten dollar tent with a million-dollar missile) just to show that, yes, it does work, and quite well, thank you, and we hope you enjoyed the demonstration. But like the battleships and the modern carrier, you'll rarely see laserstars going toe-to-toe, and when they do it probably means someone screwed up.

However, all due respect to Citizen, I do very much think humans in space will be there for the express purpose of decision-making. The laserstar as stated above is not a weapon of war, it is a weapon of politics. As long as we don't surrender our society to the machines entirely, the decisions will be made by humans, and that means a human on the scene (with the proper political connections) to decide whether or not to push the little red button. A computer can only operate on pre-programmed parameter (short of an AI, and do you really want a sentient machine in charge of a hundred billion dollars worth of WMD?) The old adage "no plan survives contact with the enemy" is fully at work there. You simply cannot plan for every contingency because humans can do some damn foolish illogical things that you never saw coming. A computer can react in nanoseconds to something it was told how to handle. A human can react in seconds to things they never thought of before.

Shuttles get overhauled after every flight. The m...

2010-02-03T21:24:32.886-08:00

Shuttles get overhauled after every flight. The military ships have constant maintenance plus time in dock for refits.

While space vessels may not endure atmospheric damage, they do suffer from constant barrage of micro particles. They are also bathed in radiation continuously.

"Next in line are cruisers. Essentially mini-...

2010-02-03T20:25:58.366-08:00

"Next in line are cruisers. Essentially mini-dreadnoughts, less capable but less expensive, and therefore far more numerous. Cruisers form the backbone of space forces, acting as the ships of the line, as it were."

A 74-gun third rate, in other words?

"That brings up an interesting point in how l...

2010-02-03T19:56:02.360-08:00

"That brings up an interesting point in how long vessels/computers last compared to humans."

Ah, but the vessels themselves are essentially rack systems holding a bundle of components in place - particularly true for deep space vessels that never deal with the stresses of entering atmo. Weapons, avionics, even drives might be swapped out repeatedly in the same "hull".

In the real world, the Discovery - due to fly the last shuttle mission this year - is 26 years old. And naval vessels can be surprisingly long-lived. The attack sub USS Los Angeles was just decommissioned after 34 years of service. And the carrier USS Enterprise remains in service after 49 years in commission. The Peruvian Cruiser Almirante Grau was originally the Dutch e Ruyter, commissioned in 1953 (and laid down in 1939!).

Overall, there are a surprising amount of 70s - and a handful of 60s - vintage hulls still in service, and not all in 2nd or 3rd tier navies.

2010-02-03T19:54:07.576-08:00

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