Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ghostavo on September 02, 2009, 10:59:47 pm
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A few months ago I posted something (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=61898.0) regarding a milestone in the development of laser weaponry.
It seems 6 months later we've reached another one.
Boeing seems to have mounted a freaking laser gun on a C-130H aircraft (http://www.166aw.ang.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/080605-F-6334M-008.jpg) and has been testing it against ground targets.
Without further ado, the report.
<Link to article> (http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=817)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Sept. 1, 2009 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] and the U.S. Air Force on Aug. 30 defeated a ground target from the air with the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) aircraft, demonstrating ATL's first air-to-ground, high-power laser engagement of a tactically representative target.
During the test, the C-130H aircraft took off from Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., and fired its high-power chemical laser through its beam control system while flying over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The beam control system acquired the ground target -- an unoccupied stationary vehicle -- and guided the laser beam to the target, as directed by ATL's battle management system. The laser beam's energy defeated the vehicle.
"This milestone demonstrates that directed energy weapon systems will transform the battlespace and save lives by giving warfighters a speed-of-light, ultra-precision engagement capability that will dramatically reduce collateral damage," said Greg Hyslop, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. "By demonstrating this capability, the ATL team has earned a distinguished place in the history of weapon system development."
The test occurred less than three months after a June 13 test in which ATL successfully fired its laser from the air for the first time, hitting a target board on the ground. The ATL team plans additional tests to further demonstrate the system's military utility. These demonstrations support the development of systems that will conduct missions on the battlefield and in urban operations.
"The bottom line is that ATL works, and works very well," said Gary Fitzmire, vice president and program director of Boeing Missile Defense Systems' Directed Energy Systems unit. "ATL's components -- the high-energy chemical laser, beam control system and battle manager -- are performing as one integrated weapon system, delivering effective laser beam energy to ground targets."
Discuss!
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Ah yes, I heard about this.
I'm curious what kind of vehicle they hit; the YAL is capable of taking down fighters because it can vaporize the canopy; it can't actually damage the airframe well. I doubt this has too much more power, and armored vehicles are something of a step up from aircraft.
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I'll believe that it's as effective as they say it is when it performs as well in actual combat conditions.
I'm also curious as to how effective that device would be on ground troops. [/freaking evil]
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I'm also curious as to how effective that device would be on ground troops. [/freaking evil]
Your head asplode.
Literally. Starting with your eyes; lots of fluid there. The water in your brain tissues converts to steam and expands as your skull acts like a microwave.
(sleep well, kids!)
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/me goes off to develop the mirrored combat helmet.
Camouflage might be an issue.
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This always makes me wonder why -- in universe -- the lasers in Freespace never went the speed of light...
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This always makes me wonder why -- in universe -- the lasers in Freespace never went the speed of light...
simlpe. the cloud of ether the game takes place in reduces the speed of concentrated light (lasers).
also esplains the flight mechanics.
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This always makes me wonder why -- in universe -- the lasers in Freespace never went the speed of light...
Same reason teh lasers in Star Wars don't go the speed of light
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Well, for one thing they're not actual beams of light.
They're magnetically accelarated bolts of ignited plasma and are referred to as Lasers for some inane reason.
The only weapons in FSverse which could be said to be true lasers are beam weapons (unless i missed or forgot something somewhere) and the defunct Targeting Laser
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Nasty things that come from C-130s
- Ground Troops and light Vehicles
- Daisy Cutters
- 20, 40 and 75mm ordinance fire in massive quantities
- Now with Freaking Laser Beams
Nice things that come from C-130s
Analysis indicates when you see a C-130 run the frak away
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Nasty things that come from C-130s
- Ground Troops and light Vehicles
- Daisy Cutters
- 20, 40 and 75mm ordinance fire in massive quantities
- Now with Freaking Laser Beams
Nice things that come from C-130s
Analysis indicates when you see a C-130 run the frak away
Bahahaha.
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Actually as a product demonstration they should have the C-130 drop job lots of corn and then have it turn round and zap it into popcorn with its Freaking Laser Beam.
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Well, for one thing they're not actual beams of light.
They're magnetically accelarated bolts of ignited plasma and are referred to as Lasers for some inane reason.
The only weapons in FSverse which could be said to be true lasers are beam weapons (unless i missed or forgot something somewhere) and the defunct Targeting Laser
the weapons in FS are called laser cannons because they use lasers to charge the ionized gass they fire. it's how they make the plasma they shoot
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Well, for one thing they're not actual beams of light.
The ML-16, Prometheus, and Mekhu/Subach tech descriptions would beg to differ. :P
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They are called lasers, because all the other games/movies that featured similar weaponry called them "lasers." :p
I don't think they bothered too much about actual physics when they named their primary weapons (I'm not talking about the tech descriptions, ok?)
On-topic: I'm happy that development has not stopped despite the crisis. Anything that reduces collateral damage is good.
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They are called lasers, because all the other games/movies that featured similar weaponry called them "lasers." :p
I don't think they bothered too much about actual physics when they named their primary weapons (I'm not talking about the tech descriptions, ok?)
On-topic: I'm happy that development has not stopped despite the crisis. Anything that reduces collateral damage is good.
collateral damage can only be avoided with top rate guidance tech using 100% accurate intel data and operated by some one fully rested and properly trained in how to use the equipment
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They are called lasers, because all the other games/movies that featured similar weaponry called them "lasers." :p
I don't think they bothered too much about actual physics when they named their primary weapons
Well now wonder the GTA/PVN/GTVA always get their arses kicked...They don't know how their weapons actually work...Instead they make up some crap that sounds about right but is not actually true...
on topic...
collateral damage can only be avoided with top rate guidance tech using 100% accurate intel data and operated by some one fully rested and properly trained in how to use the equipment
In other word, with our current level of tech and questionable intel-gathering abilities, it can't be done.
It currently is beyond humanities ablilty to avoid collateral damage...Hell, we're barely able to minimize it at the moment anyway
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Actually as a product demonstration they should have the C-130 drop job lots of corn and then have it turn round and zap it into popcorn with its Freaking Laser Beam.
This. For the love of God, this.
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Well now wonder the GTA/PVN/GTVA always get their arses kicked...They don't know how their weapons actually work...Instead they make up some crap that sounds about right but is not actually true...
Of course I meant Volition (out-of-universe), not any in-universe faction.
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The only weapons in FSverse which could be said to be true lasers are beam weapons (unless i missed or forgot something somewhere) and the defunct Targeting Laser
And to imagine how incredible powerful that laser has to be since the amount of light scattered by the dust in space is enough to make the beam appear continuous... And that the beam is not even partially reflected back nor there is any liquid metal splashing out of the hole!
Gimme one of those instead of those pesky 3 mW Helium-Neons that only illuminate the dust particles and leave the rest of the space black. (Actually, class IV lasers are a lot more fun to play with)
Would anyone venture a guess at which mode those big Freespace beams work? TEM00 anyone?
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* Waves to the SCP team *
Maybe that twinkling beam could be something cool to see? Or an immensely white burning spot in the target ship with lesser powered reflected beams and white hot burning splashes of metal? Just a couple of suggestions for eye-candy.
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il be amazed when they fire laser beams out of their f22s
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I have no doubt it's coming. Though I doubt it would even replace the 50 cal cannon.
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Ironically the best use for lasers on combat aircraft would probably be something like in Command and Conquer Generals (god forbid), where they were used as an anti-missile defense on F-22s.
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Don't forget the Paladins had anti-missile lasers too.
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Worst General power ever. Unless you have about two dozen of them, in which case, they're expendable.
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Funny how they promote development by saying it will "save the lives of warfighters." 50 years from now when you're getting shot at with "lasguns" you might regret such comments... History teaches us that no man's technology remains his alone forever.
-Thaeris
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Lasguns? I've seen how those things work in the 41st Millennium. I'd rather have something less sucky, like a coilrifle or railrifle.
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It's the principle, man! The principle!
-Thaeris
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Lasguns? I've seen how those things work in the 41st Millennium. I'd rather have something less sucky, like a coilrifle or railrifle.
The lasguns the Imperial Guard use are underpowered mass produced pop guns designed for a class of soldier deemed less valuable in a ratio of at least 100 to 1 vs a Space Marine. The tech is sound though as it's the same basic type of gun the SMs use on the Land Raider, only VASTLY more powerful.
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Ironically the best use for lasers on combat aircraft would probably be something like in Command and Conquer Generals (god forbid), where they were used as an anti-missile defense on F-22s.
There are rumors that the B-2 has an onboard laser capable of burning out missile IR seekers...
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Well, for one thing they're not actual beams of light.
The ML-16, Prometheus, and Mekhu/Subach tech descriptions would beg to differ. :P
The Avenger and the Maxim weren't even plasma cannons. :p
The Nazis and their "Sun Gun" project (http://www.damninteresting.com/the-third-reichs-diabolical-orbiting-superweapon#more-940) was kind of a death ray, though not a real laser. Thankfully for us, the war ended before they could get it off the drawing board. Of all the amazingly advanced stuff they were working on when the war ended, this has got to be the most impressive, if anything just for the sheer coolness factor. Now imagine if they started investing in this stuff much earlier in the war............
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I still think that the flour cannon is their best weapon. :D
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Of all the amazingly advanced stuff they were working on when the war ended, this has got to be the most impressive, if anything just for the sheer coolness factor. Now imagine if they started investing in this stuff much earlier in the war............
It wouldn't have mattered since Allied engineering was better.
At best, all the Wunderwaffen would have done is caused the first atomic bomb to be deployed over Berlin. :P
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which would have been shot down by the jet fighter which would have been in service.
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You don't shoot down bombs, not even today, and we've got ENORMOUSLY better equipment nowadays.
Sure, a couple bombers maybe, but we had three. One of them would have gotten it, surely :P.
Also, wouldn't be Berlin. We didn't A-bomb Tokyo.
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which would have been shot down by the jet fighter which would have been in service.
Which would have been shot down before it could attack since either you accept that the Luftwaffe has been knocked out of the sky and is out of oil, but Overlord was never launched, because y'know massive production advantage in aircraft and possibly the addition of the USN carrier fleet to help cope and bomb the hell out of Germany from the Baltic.
...or it's 1947 and it's the two-thousand-plane raid of B-36s escorted by naval aircraft and P-80s and they all have atomic bombs, if for some inane reason you think they could manage to take the British Isles early in the war. And Germany shall be a radioactive wasteland.
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Which would have been shot down before it could attack since either you accept that the Luftwaffe has been knocked out of the sky and is out of oil,
Depends on what time frame we're talking about. If the jet fighters had been available in '43 (and would have been if it wasn't for Hitler's infamous fighter bomber order) when they actually had enough oil to put sufficient numbers of them in the air, the allied bomber squadrons would have been in a world of hurt given it's 4:1 kill ratio. Its amazing to think though, they had such potential but were often held back by such bad management (if they hadn't persecuted the jews, many of whom were Germany's best nuclear physicists, they might have even had the bomb, who knows). Not many people in the top management positions even saw the potential for jet aircraft (Goering cutback the engine development program to just 3 dozen engineers in 1940) until it was too late.
or it's 1947 and it's the two-thousand-plane raid of B-36s escorted by naval aircraft and P-80s and they all have atomic bombs,
Could the US have had that many a-bombs by '47?
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I'm going to have to disagree with NGTM-1R on German engineering. But I'll also say that Allied engineering was superb as well. They both had great strengths in certain areas - one or the other outmached one in one front of science while being bested to an extent in another. As a whole, they were very well matched. It's one of the reasons the war lasted as long as it did.
Next thing... That many special weapons in one bombing mission is... perhaps not impossible (you'll never know 'till you try...), but the closest thing to it. If countries like North Korea and Iran, both of which are much less sophisticated than the superpowers (yet are still concievably above the level of scientific knowledge possesed by the major powers of WWII), can't do it now with all the information out there to any great extent, how would the Allies have done that? A nuclear strike is likely, but not like that.
-Thaeris
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Depends on what time frame we're talking about. If the jet fighters had been available in '43 (and would have been if it wasn't for Hitler's infamous fighter bomber order) when they actually had enough oil to put sufficient numbers of them in the air, the allied bomber squadrons would have been in a world of hurt given it's 4:1 kill ratio. Its amazing to think though, they had such potential but were often held back by such bad management (if they hadn't persecuted the jews, many of whom were Germany's best nuclear physicists, they might have even had the bomb, who knows). Not many people in the top management positions even saw the potential for jet aircraft (Goering cutback the engine development program to just 3 dozen engineers in 1940) until it was too late.
The problem with that scenario is that, had it happened, the Glouster Meteor and P-80 would have been rushed through the final stages of development, be ready by late 1944, and both were better aircraft with safer, more powerful engines.
Also there were key problems with the German jets. They left distinctive blast marks on the runways, and required concrete runways (difficult to repair, natch) of a certain length. There was an Allied plan to close all jet airfields by successive heavy bomber raids if necessary. It never was, but daily visits by 100 B-17s/B-24s per airfield was envisioned and possible. Germany could not have produced enough jets to stop it. They could make the efforts of 8th Air Force costly, but they never had the ability to truly win a battle of attrition.
Could the US have had that many a-bombs by '47?
The scenario I describe is basically the one spelled out by US warplans circa the Battle of Britain. Having no further need to equip the RAF (who used about 30% of all US aircraft that came off the production lines), and having skipped B-17/B-24 production and headed directly to transoceanic bombers, further production efforts could and would have been devoted to the atomic bomb. The number sounds larger than it really is, as well, because it wasn't hard to build 2000 B-36s in WW2 America, and the buildup would not have been interfered with by combat losses. Assume the B-36s are ready for production by 1944. Six months to build them all. It takes until mid-1947 to build all the a-bombs.
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Hate to say it, that sounds rather inplausible. Logistics and risks just would make such operations a bad idea. Modern aircraft do it (uber-long range flights... the '36 did this too, but...), sure, but the safety margins on a modern aircraft are far higher than any WWII aircraft. Manufacturing nukes also takes a good deal of time. even in two years, I'd find it hard to believe you'd have enough weapons to go "day tripping" with them.
German designs were shifted to defensive work for the most of the latter stages of the war. Bomber projects became a concern again with hopes of using "wonder weapons," but the production capacity to produce any would have been minimal at least without some sort of miraculous turn of events for the Germans. Thus, any aviation designs in primary development would have been (and were) focused on fighter-bombers and interceptors as well as air defense technologies. Other projects were most definately there (check out http://www.luft46.com), but would never have recieved the magnitude of attention as fighters and air defense. Even in the often nonsensical last days of the Third Reich, I believe they exuded enough common sense as to pursue the neccessary agendas.
Because a WWII fighter-bomber is often very limited in range when carrying a ground attack payload, V-1s were often intercepted and had marginal-at-best (if any) accuracy against precision targets... ad V-2s were also quite inaccurate... it makes no sense to base strategic bombers "across the pond." If you base them out of England, you can carry less fuel and thus carry more ordnance. You also have a much shorter turn-around time. THE ONLY exception I can think of for launching a '36... or something like a YB-49 strike out of the US... would be sending a small, highly classified mission to nuke a target. If the flight is small, it might be considered a ferry flight if the enemy's intel is even good enough to know it launched. A mass nuking mission in "extended WWII" is the least likely worse-case scenario I can think of.
-Thaeris
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*headdesk*
So, you do realize that in this scenario Germany took Britain, correct?
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Oh...
Perhaps I shall read the link next time...
-Thaeris
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The problem with that scenario is that, had it happened, the Glouster Meteor and P-80 would have been rushed through the final stages of development, be ready by late 1944, and both were better aircraft with safer, more powerful engines.
Not that I'm an expert or anything but I was under the impression the Meteor was in many ways inferior to the 262. Wasn't Heinkel's jet prototype better than the 262?
In reality if Germany's leaders were smart they wouldn't have declared war on the US, at least not before knocking out the Russians.
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Not that I'm an expert or anything but I was under the impression the Meteor was in many ways inferior to the 262. Wasn't Heinkel's jet prototype better than the 262?
The Meteor was slightly slower, and less well-armed (German fighter armament shaded into massive overkill because they were going up against extremely robust US heavy bombers; if the bomber threat they were used to had not materalized, the 262 would never have flown in the first place as they would have been building Arados), but it was a difference definitely not insurmountable. It also had vastly more reliable and safer engines and was an easier aircraft to fly. The 262 had bad tendancies about flameout at high speed, engine fires on startup and takeoff, and maintance issues.
In reality if Germany's leaders were smart they wouldn't have declared war on the US, at least not before knocking out the Russians.
Which is, of course, another impossiblity, on a similar scale. German could not win the war with the US; on the technical front the vast US university system ensured that they would lose the technology race, they would lose the manpower one as well, they had nothing remotely like the industrial capacity. The Germans had a better technical base then Russia (somewhat nullified by the fact that the Russians invested their technical resources very wisely prewar), but a similar problem of industry and a much worse manpower one.
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Is it just me... or did a few posts disappear from the other day? I recall adding some info about the '262's engines. In other threads, the responses to some commentary I and others made just... it's gone.
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Yeah. They had a server error. The result of which, means that the servers had to be reset to the last saved version backup. As a result, posts made since that save were lost because thay hadn't been backed up...
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Read the announcements (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65531.0) :p
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I didn't see that before... :nervous:
Well, on the current topic which is a tangent of the real topic...
Someone was asking about German WWII jet engines. The Me-262 used the Junkers Jumo 004b turbojet for most of its service life. If I recall properly, other engine types were tested but not widely employed. NTGM-1R is right in saying they were not as good as the Allied engines of the period - but just going off of what he said I feel is a bit misleading.
The German engine was in many ways superior to the British design. All actual jets the Germans used or designed to my knowledge were powered by such engines. Most engines you see today are what we call axial-flow. Thus, the actual concept of their engines were more advanced than the British design as evidenced by current technological trends. The British engine was a centrifugal-flow type engine. It's a portly, squat design, but it works. Elements of both engines are visible in modern jets, but the commanding design feature visible is the axial-flow design. Centifugal-flow engines are not a good choice for a fighter as they're very broad, meaning you'll eventually have some problems if you want a design to go really fast. Slim is better...
Allied engines were better because they were often in an environment where they could be extensively tested and refined... and then be built out of good materials. The greatest flaw of the German jets were their inferior materials. Thus, engines might last as little as ten flight hours before they were in need of a major overhaul. Fuel leaks... though I've not heard of that problem to date... would explain the flame-outs. As far as overcomplexity goes... that's inherently German. :D German engines were interesting for a particular feature: they used a small two-stroke Wankel engine to spool up the turbine. APU for the win... I also mention this due to the fact that the starter was not always reliable if my memory serves me well. On the other side, allied engines were using a cartridge start for how long?
So no, the germans did not design bad engines, but they didn't have the manufacturing environment to produce truly reliable ones, either. I'm in no way dissatisfied with that, either.
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The Meteor was slightly slower, and less well-armed (German fighter armament shaded into massive overkill because they were going up against extremely robust US heavy bombers; if the bomber threat they were used to had not materalized, the 262 would never have flown in the first place as they would have been building Arados), but it was a difference definitely not insurmountable. It also had vastly more reliable and safer engines and was an easier aircraft to fly. The 262 had bad tendancies about flameout at high speed, engine fires on startup and takeoff, and maintance issues.
I was asking for a comparison between the Heinkel and the Messerschmidt jet designs (Heinkel's competitor to the ME262), not with the Meteor. I was wondering this because I wasn't sure if the ME-262 being chosen was because it was technically superior or just because of political favoritism.
About the answer that seemed to disappear about Germany's investments in advanced weaponry: If they did invest at an equal rate then how come their designs stagnated for so long? The Panther and Tiger didn't even start being designed until after encoutering the T-34, they still depended on aging designs such as the BF109, He111, and the type 7 uboats all the way until the end.
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The Heinkel jet was supposedly an underperformer from what I've read, lacking the speed and climb of the 262, but I've never seen the statistics quantified the same way twice so I'm somewhat suspicious.
They reached too far ahead in some ways. Stuff like the "Dicker Max" panzerjager (vastly overdesigned for its time), early widespread employment of rockets, the other wunderwaffen like the V-1 and V-2, were all in development early. The Bf109, like the Spitfire, underwent a lot of evolution as the war progressed. It's hardly fair to call it aging when it made such progress. The Type VII U-boat was, in a lot of ways, far better than any Allied submarine design. It could dive deeper and faster, withstand closer depth-charging. There was nothing wrong with the weapon, everything wrong with the subsystems that weren't very good or just not there. That's what I was getting at. Most Allied technical development was not based around building entirely new weapons as much as it was improving existing ones. Germany, as far as I am aware, never even touched the whole concept of operational research during the war. The British invented it, the Americans copied and refined it.
The T-34 issue, on the other hand, was a result of a moumental failure of basic intelligence. That failure was in turn one of many made prior to and during Operation Barbarossa.
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The Type VII U-boat was, in a lot of ways, far better than any Allied submarine design. It could dive deeper and faster, withstand closer depth-charging.
No doubt it was, but they had something even better in the type 21, so why not go with it? It was exactly what they needed in '42, '43, it could stay underwater many times longer, go much faster underwater, had the snorkel, that thing could have done some serious damage to a convoy. Speaking of the snorkel, why wasn't it put to widespread use much earlier?
everything wrong with the subsystems that weren't very good or just not there. That's what I was getting at.
Good point. So who is to blame for that?
The Bf109, like the Spitfire, underwent a lot of evolution as the war progressed. It's hardly fair to call it aging when it made such progress.
From what I read by 1944 it was getting somewhat outclassed, also based on what I read the FW-190 was a much better design. Of course feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. The point is if they had something that was clearly better, why not build more of it?
early widespread employment of rockets, the other wunderwaffen like the V-1 and V-2, were all in development early.
From what I understand, they also had working prototypes of guided AAMs and SAMs, but they didn't start looking into those until '42 and '41. What if they started researching them earlier (and actually adopting them before it was too late)? Personally I think that a massive V-2 barrage (instead of launching 10 per day, launching 1000 all at once) could devastate a large part of London, is that possible? Instead of having the Battle of Britain, just these a bunch of these and smash them with a "rain of steel"?
Stuff like the "Dicker Max" panzerjager (vastly overdesigned for its time),
Never heard of that one.
The T-34 issue, on the other hand, was a result of a moumental failure of basic intelligence.
True, but even discounting that letting your tank designs stagnate when you have such a dangerous potential enemy with huge numbers and a large industrial capacity sitting on your doorstep strikes me as rather........stupid.
That failure was in turn one of many made prior to and during Operation Barbarossa.
What else did they frak up?
EDIT:After reading this about the Henschel butterfly SAM it really makes you wonder wtf these guys were thinking:
n 1941, Professor Herbert A. Wagner (who was previously responsible for the Henschel Hs 293 anti-ship missile) invented the Schmetterling missile and submitted it to the Reich Air Ministry (RLM), who rejected the design because there was no need for more anti-aircraft weaponry.
Given the appearent two year development time, this could have ripped through allied bomber squadrons by '43. Just reading things like this sometimes makes me wonder how they managed to conquer as much as they did.
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Given the appearent two year development time, this could have ripped through allied bomber squadrons by '43. Just reading things like this sometimes makes me wonder how they managed to conquer as much as they did.
Blitzkrieg. France/Britain were not prepared to fight a fast paced war.
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No doubt it was, but they had something even better in the type 21, so why not go with it? It was exactly what they needed in '42, '43, it could stay underwater many times longer, go much faster underwater, had the snorkel, that thing could have done some serious damage to a convoy. Speaking of the snorkel, why wasn't it put to widespread use much earlier?
The U-Boat war wasn't definitively lost until May of '43 (and they'd actually done extremely well two months before). Black May was the result of many cumulative processes taking hold at once, not really predictable. The Type XXI and XXVI electro-boote were both in active development by '42, well before then mind you, but they used so many new technologies at one time that systems integration and the like delayed their introduction to 1945. The Allied incremental improvement process, adding one new system at a time, was ultimately a better model for this reason.
Good point. So who is to blame for that?
Some of it must fall on Donitz, and his BdU, for not pushing the technical establishment harder and for remaining oburate on certain points expressed in patrol reports, like shipboard HFDF. Some of it must fall on the technical establishment, for lacking the imagination to design things like submarine-based radar or failing to realize HFDF installations could be shrunk down small enough to fit on an escort vessel, for lacking the urgency to inform the interested parties rapidly of their discoveries about Allied gear or realize its implications and the need for rapid counters themselves. They managed some great successes, like the rapid development and deployment of the metric-radar search reciever, on their own.
From what I read by 1944 it was getting somewhat outclassed, also based on what I read the FW-190 was a much better design. Of course feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. The point is if they had something that was clearly better, why not build more of it?
There is truth to this, in that by 1944 the 109's airframe was pretty close to played out. The G-6 and G-10 were not bad aircraft, however. They could carry their own weight. That simply wasn't good enough by then, they needed a truly exceptional aircraft, but that's the way it breaks down. The -190 was a superior aircraft in many, many ways, but actually this is all somewhat deceptive since by the time the difference became an issue, the battle was lost.
Over gasoline. German avgas had a low octane (about 50) rating and didn't burn well at high altitudes, costing engine power. Allied gasoline had about a 150 rating and so burned three times as well at altitude.
From what I understand, they also had working prototypes of guided AAMs and SAMs, but they didn't start looking into those until '42 and '41. What if they started researching them earlier (and actually adopting them before it was too late)? Personally I think that a massive V-2 barrage (instead of launching 10 per day, launching 1000 all at once) could devastate a large part of London, is that possible? Instead of having the Battle of Britain, just these a bunch of these and smash them with a "rain of steel"?
A V2 launch site was actually a fairly involved thing. Part of the reason for the slow launch rate is a slow production rate. They never had very many V-2s at one time. It wouldn't have been practical to assemble a large number and launch them all at once, lack of launch sites and the delays in doing so.
As for the guided weapons, there's an issue with them. They were guided yes, beam-riders, and so easily spoofed even with WW2 technology. Electronic warfare was a doorway German never opened, but the Allies commited to heavily, so in practice it wouldn't have ended well.
Never heard of that one.
Few people do. You have to be a real fanatic, or own a copy of Steel Panthers: World At War. They only built two of them. One was destroyed in combat, the other retired from service in mid-1943.
What else did they frak up?
Basic intelligence on just about every level. Their assumed order of battle for the Red Army was a joke. The chief of the general staff commented on it on the 47th day of the campaign. "When we invaded Russian we counted on an enemy force of only 150 large formations. To date, we have engaged 247." Their assumptions about the Russian officer corps were nonsense. They had no real conception of what it would take to cripple Russian industry. Basically just about every intelligence failure you could have, they had.
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Perhaps the surface-to-air missiles they were developing were beam-riders, but all other (air-launched) systems I'm aware of relied on an operator actively guiding the weapon system. The X-4 AAM was basically an air-to-air TOW missile without a TV camera. The missile used a phosphorus trail to enable the pilot to see its progress and steer it to the target. Control was afforded via a small joystick.
Read more on it here: http://www.luft46.com/missile/x-4.html
Amusing end to the missile's limited history: a large quantity of devices are produced but the propulsion systems are destroyed in a bombing run... the exact thing the weapon system was designed to counter... :lol:
There was a simpler weapon before it... it was comparable in appearance to the Henschel anti-shipping missile, but smaller. It actually might have seen limited combat deployment.
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Perhaps the surface-to-air missiles they were developing were beam-riders, but all other (air-launched) systems I'm aware of relied on an operator actively guiding the weapon system. The X-4 AAM was basically an air-to-air TOW missile without a TV camera. The missile used a phosphorus trail to enable the pilot to see its progress and steer it to the target. Control was afforded via a small joystick.
That's not even worth spoofing (and also not at all comparable to the TOW, which is an image-recognition sort of weapon). The Russians developed a few ATGMs like that but the technology was just so useless that they were never considered a serious threat to a tank. Much less an aircraft. Much less a high-flying aircraft you can't actually see that well. Hell, that's just not worth it against heavy bombers at all.
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<Thaeris would like to point out that due to a complete lack of historical operational history, your statements are unjustified>
Against a maneuvering target, no. If you know the weapons rate of acceleration, approximate effective range, etc., it's not bad. Because it relies on an acoustic fuse (which I assume would have a delay after launch for obvious reasons), the weapon only needs to get close to the target to do damage. AND, if you did get a direct hit, A FREAKIN' 44 POUND WARHEAD would eviscerate anything it hit. If nothing else, it would be worse than a flak round if a direct hit was not achieved. Essentially, the pilot would use the stick for minor corrections in the flightpath. An attack would ideally take place above the formation's altitude, with the attacking fighter flying a relatively straight approach.
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See, all of this is pointless, because it's got this human operator trying to aim it by remote control in an extremely counterintuitive fashion, from a range of at least 2000 feet (otherwise the bombers could theoritically return fire) which is about double the recommended range at which this sort of thing is even remotely accurate using the considerably more advanced setup of the Sagger, the bombers will manuver unless they're on their bombing run (in which case you have to fly through flak to launch). By the time it entered service anyways there would have been escort fighters, further decreasing accuracy because they'll come after you and you have to manuver, unless they shoot you down, in which case it's all totally moot.
And we aren't talking about modern aircraft that rip themselves apart when something blows up nearby. This is a fraking B-17. It hits a telephone pole on takeoff and flies the mission anyways because nobody noticed. It survives being mid-aired by enemy fighters. Sure, a direct hit will be lethal, but there are much simpler and more effective methods delievering direct hits from lesser weapons that will be equally lethal.
It's totally worthless.
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Modern aircraft aren't that frail. That would be stupid. Modern weapons are, rather, far more lethal.
A .50cal Browning can definately shoot farther than 2000ft. A mile would be easy. Hitting something at that range is questionable.
Tell me, HOW THE HELL did they ever manage to hit a target with those rediculous 21cm rocket mortars? They weren't always effective, but they certainly did work. Otherwise they would have been removed from service. I can think of several German rockets that were removed from AA work because they were ineffective. The 21cm rocket was a stand-off weapon lobbed at a formation beyond the formation's effective return-fire range. There's no way to tell me a spin-stabalized rocket would be worse than one of those things.
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Modern aircraft aren't that frail. That would be stupid. Modern weapons are, rather, far more lethal.
On the contrary, they are. An AMRAAM has a warhead less than the weapon you're talking about. (30 pounds? Maybe even under 25, or that's the Sidewinder...) It takes very little to destroy modern aircraft because they're not designed for structural strength or armored, and their high speed means that small damage to the airframe results in vastly increased stress on it. Two or three small holes in an aircraft moving at Mach 1 will result in it tearing apart.
Tell me, HOW THE HELL did they ever manage to hit a target with those rediculous 21cm rocket mortars? They weren't always effective, but they certainly did work. Otherwise they would have been removed from service. I can think of several German rockets that were removed from AA work because they were ineffective. The 21cm rocket was a stand-off weapon lobbed at a formation beyond the formation's effective return-fire range. There's no way to tell me a spin-stabalized rocket would be worse than one of those things.
Getting in reasonably close, 1500 feet or so, and firing an awful lot of them. That's theoritically in range of return fire but a fighter's too small a target. The problem isn't your spin-stablized rocket (although then, perhaps it is; this is relatviely new technology and you can always screw up the spin), but the operator, who thinks he's missing all the time because he usually is, but even when he's not...
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Moden missiles are dangerous because the possess a HUGE amount of kinetic energy. An AIM-120 has a V-max which probably exceeds Mach 4. Given a frangible warhead (armed with an explosive undoubtably greater than the WWII era stuff like Torpex), a directed blast from that missile is going do deliver serious carnage. Period.
Keep in mind combat reports from the Gulf War. A Hornet flying a combat sortie encountered a MiG-21. Firing upon the fighter with... a Sparrow I believe?... the MiG indeed was in trouble. I'm certain it was a critical hit. BUT, it didn't just blow to pieces like a pinata. I'd actually like to see how a B-17 or '24 would react to a moden missile hit... Needless to say, I don't think your bomber would fare well.
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I know the incident you refer to: it was outside the lethal radius. Run your modern aircraft into the edge of the hanger while taxiing. Is it still mission-capable? Have it hit a telephone pole on takeoff. Can it still fly?
They do not have the structural strength, because it costs weight. Similarly, they do not have the armor, because it costs weight.
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well, most of them don't, there are a few with a different design philosophy, like the A10
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I think you are comparing apples to oranges.
There is an incident involving an Israeli F-15 mid-airing an A-4, losing basically the other wing and still keeping on flying. Would like to see a WWII era plane that could do the same. Commercial jetliners are also designed to withstand failures of control surfaces and other parts of the hull, as are modern military aircraft. For instance, take a look how Soviet Union acquired their first working heat seeking missile from US. And I'm pretty sure going above Mach 1 requires a sturdy structure in itself, and is something that the WWII era thingies cannot do.
The reason why modern aircraft are grounded for hitting the edge of a hangar is to minimize risks. The same applies to commerical aviation, take a look what kind of abuse airliners encounter during their service life. One of the Boeing aircrafts in Hawaii (1970s era) lost 10 meters of its roof in midflight and was able to return back safely.
I think you are comparing the relative effectiveness in an odd way. Larger amount of explosives doesn't necessarily mean higher probability of destruction. If the projectile is not accurate enough, yield needs to be increased. Modern projectiles seem to pack smaller yields which would hint that they are quite accurate.
Back to topic, lasers could drastically change the air combat if they can be made small enough to fit in modern jets and still have a reasonable range.
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There is an incident involving an Israeli F-15 mid-airing an A-4, losing basically the other wing and still keeping on flying. Would like to see a WWII era plane that could do the same.
This is an illustration of exactly what I mean. Modern aircraft have a huge surplus of engine power, because they are designed in such a way as to encourage it. Of course a WW2 aircraft can't do that. It doesn't have enough excess engine power, because it isn't designed that way. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if an Oscar could do it.)
And I'm pretty sure going above Mach 1 requires a sturdy structure in itself, and is something that the WWII era thingies cannot do.
There's this thing. It's called "compressability". Military aircraft confronted the sound barrier long before the X-1 rocketplane. The speed of sound is lower at high altitude, and when military aircraft started being able to realistically breach the 20,000 foot barrier, they started diving from it. And then a little later, they started diving from it with powerful engines. And they started crashing, because of compressability: that whole speed of sound thing, and how it affected their particular design. You may note low-speed modern aircraft look significantly different from high-speed ones. That's because they learned it takes a different sort of design to handle breaching the sound barrier and remaining controllable. The X-1 did it simply because it was ridiculously overengineered.
The reason why modern aircraft are grounded for hitting the edge of a hangar is to minimize risks.
Because it's probably damaged. This wasn't an issue with a design of a WW2 aircraft.
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I would imagine that at the higher speeds aircraft engage at in the modern era, missiles impart more kinetic force to their target upon interception. Then again, those same speeds can rip aircraft apart if there is a whole that the (?)wind(?) catches.
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Any time you smack something into something else, it's damaged. The seriousness of that damage is another issue.
Modern fighter planes are generally designed to take over 9+ times the force of gravity. And deal with it a lot... that's a sustained figure for a sizable amount ot time. Of course the pilot can't deal with that so much, but there you go. Thus, the fighter is actually capable of taking more than that number of G-forces... it's just not designed to deal with that number of forces sustained.
Ever see an F-104 wing? I have... up close. And yes, the blighter's quite sharp. A modern wing is a LOT tougher than a WWII plane's wing: I'm going to base this argument off the '104 (a little old...), but that will serve my purpose. The F-104's wing is INCREDIBLY heavy... It's mostly metal. That compensates for it being so thin as well as the high stresses on that structure. I'm not even sure it had a fuel tank in it... should look that up some time. To handle supersonic speeds, an immense wing loading, etc., modern wings are very strong. So, why would you ground an aircraft like that if it happens to ram something on the ground? Here's why: you're flying at supersonic speeds and putting immense forces on the aircraft from even light maneuvers. Any shearing, however miniscule, on that structure will be multiplied by whatever the aircraft does in flight. A WWII aircraft didn't have to worry about that so much because it was very much subsonic. If it was hitting the transonic region, the pilot was probably in for a nasty surprise...
Could an Oscar fly without a wing despite its high power-to-weight ratio? NO. Engine power is one part of the equation, but not all of it. Aerodynamics has a huge part in this matter, namely the airfoil and fuselage lift characteristics. The Oscar had a cambered airfoil as far as I can tell, meaning it was deigned to generate lift at 0 AOA. The net force from the two wings lifting upward would have been centered in the fuselage centerline. Take away a wing, and your lifting force is no longer down the central Z-axis (given z is front-to-back). The plane is uncontrollable/unrecoverable because there is not enough counterforce from any of the control surfaces to counter the moment. That plane is doomed.
Again look at the '104 wing. It's pretty much symmetrical in its cross-section. Most modern fighters (and aerobatic aircraft... but that's a little different) will be like this. You can fly a 1-winged Eagle because it has a low or zero-camber wing... given that it has sufficient airspeed. It also has that wonderful lift-inducing fuselage. It also has slab-elevators (not to mention the control surfaces on the remaining wing) which will pitch as well as roll the fighter... and they have a HUGE area. Thus, you have sufficient force to balance any non-symmetrical moment.
Lasly, kill the Hollywood physics. A hole in an airliner window will not rip the fuselage apart. It will depressurize, but that only makes sense. A moden fighter plane, as evidenced by what they do, is not made of paper. Keep in mind many modern FIGHTER planes can carry over 20,000 lbs of ordnance, more than most heavy bombers of WWII. And they can usually keep doing it, too.
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An airliner is irrevelant. It's not fast enough. There are very tight tolerances on the design of high-speed aircraft. Damaged, the first thing any pilot will do is slow down because he doesn't want to stress his airframe. At high speed adding holes in your airframe to be torn at, hammered at, by the wind, is not a good thing. Progressive damage is not a myth, and above Mach 1 it isn't a slow progression.
You're not getting it. Just because it can handle more stress of a different type doesn't give it overall better at handling stress. You can see the same progression in modern warships too. There's no armor in the design anymore. It's not considered a worthwhile addition. You cannot possibly believe that unarmored airframes will ever be as durable as armored ones. Similarly, the design of WW2 aircraft functioned under different rules. Metal fatigue wasn't a well-understood concept, neither was a lot of other engineering. They were built to unnecessarily strong standards because nobody was quite sure and they wanted to be safe. C-47s that were built in the 1940s still fly today. The original airframes, never overhauled. That's not something any aircraft of the jet age is reasonably capable of.
If you really want an idea of how well a modern aircraft holds up to damage, consult the Zero. It's basically designed to the same paradigms. No armor, maximum effort to save weight and minimize drag. The strength of the materials used hasn't increased terribly much, the all-metal design is pretty old by now and modern aircraft typically have less bracing than some of their forebears. The massive increase in ability to carry weight has everything to do with the increase in engine power, not any magical stress-bearing increase.
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A moden fighter plane, as evidenced by what they do, is not made of paper. Keep in mind many modern FIGHTER planes can carry over 20,000 lbs of ordnance, more than most heavy bombers of WWII. And they can usually keep doing it, too
A slow 1940's era prop plane of any kind is technically more durable because it doesn't usually have the extreme stress on the airframe of going really fast. Jet engines are many times more powerful and allow you to travel faster, but when you go faster the airframe stress increases greatly. The greater the stress the less tolerance for failure.
Btw, on a different note isn't a MiG-29 capable of taking off and landing from less than suitable runways? How "rough" can they be?
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Modern fighters are armored. In many ways, they're just as armored as WWII fighters. WWII fighters typically had self-sealing fuel tanks and armor plates in the cockpit. You'd be hard-pressed to find a modern combat type without those features. The external skin applied to the late war fighters was aluminum alloy as a general rule... you're just as aware of WWII aviation as I am (I assume as such), so I need not delve into construction techniques. Unless that fighter was something special like the Hs-129 or The Il-2, armor was more or less the same with the exception of magnitude in certain areas.
The rules of phyics and engineering apply to all things. Our understanding of these matters is what changes, not the actual forces. Again, you know this. WWII aircraft did not fly by a separate set of rules. As clearly evidenced by aviation design of that period, certain principles were not well understood. You just said the same thing. And so here I agree with you, that is why aircraft were often "overbuilt," which is never typically a bad thing, either.
Aircraft like the DC-3/C-47 are oddities much like the B-52 and military 707's: they last much longer than their designers intended them to. You could in fact say all of the listed aircraft are overbuilt, which is a neccessary element in the successfulness of their service lives. However, if we refer to WWII era aircraft, how many Ju 52s are still out there, or any of the other myriad commrcial aircraft? A tough aircraft is a tough aircraft, regardless of the era in which it was built... and a lot of them weren't nearly as tough as a C-47. Although the Ju 52 is not a great example: Axis aircraft weren't benefitted by being on the losing side, look at the Allied aircraft that were in fact "not-so-tough." A great many British aircraft were quite frail in comparison to their American counterparts. The toughness and strength of American aircraft was a defining characteristic in WWII, and few aircraft from the other powers could possibly hope to live up to those standards in general.
Kosh made a great point: WWII aircraft may seem to be so much tougher because they are not subject to the much more extreme forces a modern aircraft will be. That's already been noted beforehand. That does not actually make them tougher, though. Again, you cite engine power. That's part of overcoming the force of gravity and drag, but a thin pair of wings carrying over 10,000+ lbs of ordnance plus the weight of the aircraft still requires an incredibly tough structure. If engine power was everything, why don't we see a MiG-21 blasting off with a payload like that? The last '21's had almost 17,000 lbs of thrust at their disposal. Again, structure and aerodynamics. Too high a wing loading, too light a structure. But, it is by no means a weak aircraft. It is designed for a mission and does that mission; most WWII fighters were the same in that sense.
Lastly, how can you validate the "tougher" thing? Sure, those aircraft often operated in terrible conditions. I mean, terrible (of which you again are well aware). Referring to Kosh's question, modern aircraft can deal with like circumstances IF they are designed to handle it. Cold War Soviet types are a fantastic example. But, what about everything else? FOD. A modern jet wouldn't last in "Guadalcanal conditions" not because it isn't tough enough, but because the weight of modern systems and the tendancy of jets to suck up debris would make such an operation harrowing at best. For something like that, you really need something specail. The WWII fighters could also be compared to old automobiles. Sure they were MUCH more complex, but you could rip 'em apart in the field to service them, just like you could work on an old car in your garage. To continue the analogy, a modern fighter might be compared to a modern car. You can look under the hood to check things out, but you need special equipment to find out what's wrong and then fix it. Modern systems by virtue of the computer and other advanced technology are like that. The older planes weren't necessarily tougher, it's just technology has often gone beyond the good 'ol analog.
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The reason modern aircraft--and ships--are more frail is because, by and large, MOAR!ARMOR isn't going to help. You cannot possibly put enough armor on your battleship to defeat an anti-ship missile designed to pwn it. So no one bothers trying.
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The reason modern aircraft--and ships--are more frail is because, by and large, MOAR!ARMOR isn't going to help. You cannot possibly put enough armor on your battleship to defeat an anti-ship missile designed to pwn it. So no one bothers trying.
This actually creates a funny situation: current battleships (in mothball) have enough armor to shrug off most of the (non-nuclear) missiles used today. If they were outfitted with missiles they could be very powerful platforms.
Granted if armor *was* used on most ships, then missiles would be quickly developed to deal with it - at a much cheaper price.
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This actually creates a funny situation: current battleships (in mothball) have enough armor to shrug off most of the (non-nuclear) missiles used today. If they were outfitted with missiles they could be very powerful platforms.
Granted if armor *was* used on most ships, then missiles would be quickly developed to deal with it - at a much cheaper price.
The New Jersey, an Iowa-class battleship, actually was fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles and saw action in the first Gulf War. I'm fairly certain that it was never fired on in any capacity, though.
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I think Iowa was fired upon with 2 missiles, one missed, one was intercepted by a Destroyer riding shotgun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship#Cold_War
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The reason modern aircraft--and ships--are more frail is because, by and large, MOAR!ARMOR isn't going to help. You cannot possibly put enough armor on your battleship to defeat an anti-ship missile designed to pwn it. So no one bothers trying.
This actually creates a funny situation: current battleships (in mothball) have enough armor to shrug off most of the (non-nuclear) missiles used today. If they were outfitted with missiles they could be very powerful platforms.
Granted if armor *was* used on most ships, then missiles would be quickly developed to deal with it - at a much cheaper price.
Given that they were never designed to have missiles in the first place, if you want a significant number of them the refit required would be enormous. Also lets not forget that battleships are very expensive to operate, and just not worth it. A carrier is far more effective.
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The reason modern aircraft--and ships--are more frail is because, by and large, MOAR!ARMOR isn't going to help. You cannot possibly put enough armor on your battleship to defeat an anti-ship missile designed to pwn it. So no one bothers trying.
This actually creates a funny situation: current battleships (in mothball) have enough armor to shrug off most of the (non-nuclear) missiles used today. If they were outfitted with missiles they could be very powerful platforms.
Granted if armor *was* used on most ships, then missiles would be quickly developed to deal with it - at a much cheaper price.
Given that they were never designed to have missiles in the first place, if you want a significant number of them the refit required would be enormous. Also lets not forget that battleships are very expensive to operate, and just not worth it. A carrier is far more effective.
That depends. A battleship couldn't be sunk with mere motorboats. It was quite a scandal that is still pushed under the carpet. During one of the last batch of exercises the admiral playing the bad guys (a stand in for Iran) managed to sink the carrier even with all the escorts gunning for him using motorboats and suicide tactics.
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That depends. A battleship couldn't be sunk with mere motorboats. It was quite a scandal that is still pushed under the carpet. During one of the last batch of exercises the admiral playing the bad guys (a stand in for Iran) managed to sink the carrier even with all the escorts gunning for him using motorboats and suicide tactics.
Where did you read that? And do you really think that a battleship with a 50+ year old hull is going to do any better? After all, the Yamato was sunk with rinky dink WW2 fighter-bombers.
EDIT: And those big guns wouldn't be very useful either against some small motorboats.
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If you aim right, I bet you could swamp them. :D
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That depends. A battleship couldn't be sunk with mere motorboats. It was quite a scandal that is still pushed under the carpet. During one of the last batch of exercises the admiral playing the bad guys (a stand in for Iran) managed to sink the carrier even with all the escorts gunning for him using motorboats and suicide tactics.
Where did you read that? And do you really think that a battleship with a 50+ year old hull is going to do any better? After all, the Yamato was sunk with rinky dink WW2 fighter-bombers.
EDIT: And those big guns wouldn't be very useful either against some small motorboats.
That 50 year old hull is thicker and stronger than anything we have in service today.
Also the Yamato was sunk using torpedoes. Torpedoes can still sink anything on the waters if they explode beneath them. There are modern countermeasures against them that greatly decrease their effectiveness...
...still the battleship would need escorts (hell, it always needed escorts) to protect it from torpedo boats and airplanes.
The same goes for the carrier, but unlike the carrier the battleship couldn't be sunk with a bread-and-butter missile found on any modern cruiser, it would take heavy ordnance and/or a nuke.
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Where did you read that? And do you really think that a battleship with a 50+ year old hull is going to do any better? After all, the Yamato was sunk with rinky dink WW2 fighter-bombers.
EDIT: And those big guns wouldn't be very useful either against some small motorboats.
Yes, it's called armor belt. Also note the amount of ordnance required to sink the Yamato and the number of planes to do it.
Actually, you could use the 16" against a motorboat successfully today. They also retain some of their 5" DP batteries and Sea Whiz.
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Dear Fall River,
We're taking back BB-59 and converting it to a missile tub.
Love,
The Navy
It is kinda funny, a modern DDG can put a Tomahawk though the window of the Kremlin and had more firepower then the USN WW2 combined, yet a Fletcher could probably stop some nut in a motorboat a football field away much quicker.
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
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if i can chip in anything, unless there is a major destabilization in global politics the biggest threat to any warship is a terrorist with a motor boat or shore fired rocket which means a carrier operating in deep water will be safer than a battleship operating <3 miles from the coast as the carrier is positioned in such a way that
1 you would need either a big rocket or deep water capable boat to get near it
and
2 the carrier would have more time to detect and respond to any possible threat
also we are forgetting utility
the battle ship has 1 application: smashing the daylights out of something water or shore bound.
The carrier is not only capable of launching aircraft with specialized for task weapons but also is capable of launching reconnaissance into enemy, some countries base AWACs aircraft increasing detection range and command and control abilities of the battle-group and can be used as a mobile relief center in an humanitarian emergency if some one chose to employ the ship in such a way.
tbh until such time as orbital warfare comes into play the carrier will be the core of any navy operating to be a global threat
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I think it would be cool to just mount a big gun or two on a carrier. Don't know how that would work out practically, but it would sure as hell be cool.
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I think it would be cool to just mount a big gun or two on a carrier. Don't know how that would work out practically, but it would sure as hell be cool.
Something like
____
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____/------ --------\_____
|____ | | _____|
|____| |_____|
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\________________________________________|
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Some carriers in WWII had some fairly large guns on them... 5in at least. And with multiple weapons of the same type in one turret.
...Though I don't believe there were any carriers with more than two big guns to a turret.
I believe the last class of US assault carriers retired actually had 5in gun turrets, though. So, it's not a concept too far out of date.
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Superstructural armor. Her main armor deck is one deck below the obvious main deck. Penetrating .5" of STS isn't much of a feat. The main armor deck and armor belt are without a doubt proof against any antiship missile currently in service.
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well it is designed to fool missiles into premature;7 detonation
if an enemy knew enough about the design of a ship, one could relatively easily design weapon system(s) to defeat it, or at least severly damage it.
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Not really. The belt/main deck armor is proof because modern missiles are HE. Even adding a fuze delay would not do any good as it would simply bounce off. A shaped charge or HEAT warhead could penetrate, but those are considered unuseful against any other ship design, and so not cost-effective.
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Superstructural armor. Her main armor deck is one deck below the obvious main deck. Penetrating .5" of STS isn't much of a feat. The main armor deck and armor belt are without a doubt proof against any antiship missile currently in service.
Yeah, but the ship's going to be mission-killed by losing its superstructure, and pop-up, top-down missile attacks (like against a tank) aren't difficult to arrange. A battleship's armor really protects only two things: the machinery and the magazines. The stuff on the superstructure is all anti-strafing/splinter plating. Lose the superstructure, you lose fire control, radar, everything important. Plus you're probably burning by then.
Also, I'm not sure we can say they're 'no doubt proof'. Ships with equivalent armor belts were overcome again and again by bombing and torpedoes (often simply by not hitting where the belt was). The number of cheap ASMs you can put in the air suggests to me that Missouri would be wasted pretty quick.
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Superstructural armor. Her main armor deck is one deck below the obvious main deck. Penetrating .5" of STS isn't much of a feat. The main armor deck and armor belt are without a doubt proof against any antiship missile currently in service.
Good point. So from your point of view why not bring them back into service?
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They're expensive, and specialized. :P
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Superstructural armor. Her main armor deck is one deck below the obvious main deck. Penetrating .5" of STS isn't much of a feat. The main armor deck and armor belt are without a doubt proof against any antiship missile currently in service.
Good point. So from your point of view why not bring them back into service?
I already addressed this. The ship does not function without a superstructure. It doesn't matter how good the armor belt is, that .5" of anti-strafe/splinter armor is not good enough.
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I already addressed this.
I was asking NGHTM1R.
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Sauce or it didn't happen.
EDIT:
You fail at understanding navy warfare and ship design Batutta.
Battleship, and ESPECIALLY the Iowa, are designed for redundancy and being especially hard to mission-kill.
You can turn it into a burning piece of scrap - but it will still float and fire. Fire control, ammo and the guns - heck, all mission-critical areas - are the most protected ones.
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Sauce or it didn't happen.
EDIT:
You fail at understanding navy warfare and ship design Batutta.
Battleship, and ESPECIALLY the Iowa, are designed for redundancy and being especially hard to mission-kill.
You can turn it into a burning piece of scrap - but it will still float and fire. Fire control, ammo and the guns - heck, all mission-critical areas - are the most protected ones.
While I know and understand what you're saying...its still largely a mission-kill if that kind of scenario were to happen. Sure the battleships of old, especially the Iowa class, were designed to last through some serious stand up fights. But despite all of that if you are at the point where your superstructure is a burning hulk then its likely the enemy has the ability to strike at will and even if say half of the main batteries are still effective...thats not a good place to be in.
The Bismarck still had a measure of functionality when the Royal Navy cornered the ship and blasted it to pieces. The TV documentary from a few years ago confirmed that the Bismarck sank due to scuttling rather than the torpedoes or shells from the Royal Navy. I guess my point is if its that bad already then the overall usefulness of a giant unsinkable hunk of metal is greatly questionable. Even if some of it still functions...its not really a significant player in the battle anymore. In the modern day that would mean that you would also be effectively blind due to lack of sensors.
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The TV documentary from a few years ago confirmed that the Bismarck sank due to scuttling rather than the torpedoes or shells from the Royal Navy. I guess my point is if its that bad already then the overall usefulness of a giant unsinkable hunk of metal is greatly questionable.
When it was cornered the first RN salvo knocked out the bridge and fire control IIRC, so it couldn't shoot back. Given it's appearent difficulty to sink imagine if the Royal Navy didn't get the lucky shot......
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Sauce or it didn't happen.
EDIT:
You fail at understanding navy warfare and ship design Batutta.
Battleship, and ESPECIALLY the Iowa, are designed for redundancy and being especially hard to mission-kill.
You can turn it into a burning piece of scrap - but it will still float and fire. Fire control, ammo and the guns - heck, all mission-critical areas - are the most protected ones.
The ship will not be able to fight without the superstructure. End of story. Radar, comms, everything: it's up there.
Compare the cost of even a hundred ASMs to the cost of the Missouri, not to mention the cost of such a humiliating defeat to the US, and it's easy to see why battleships are gone.
The fact that the Yamato could be taken out by WWII bombers and torpedo planes suggests that Missouri is going to end up just the same way in the face of a saturation ASM attack. The same is probably true of today's carriers, mind, but at least they don't have to get so close.
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Missouri's armor was penetrated by friendly fire from an escort's CIWS. I don't think it'd stand up to a full-blown antiship missile.
Sauce or it didn't happen.
EDIT:
You fail at understanding navy warfare and ship design Batutta.
Battleship, and ESPECIALLY the Iowa, are designed for redundancy and being especially hard to mission-kill.
You can turn it into a burning piece of scrap - but it will still float and fire. Fire control, ammo and the guns - heck, all mission-critical areas - are the most protected ones.
The ship will not be able to fight without the superstructure. End of story. Radar, comms, everything: it's up there.
Compare the cost of even a hundred ASMs to the cost of the Missouri, not to mention the cost of such a humiliating defeat to the US, and it's easy to see why battleships are gone.
The fact that the Yamato could be taken out by WWII bombers and torpedo planes suggests that Missouri is going to end up just the same way in the face of a saturation ASM attack. The same is probably true of today's carriers, mind, but at least they don't have to get so close.
the other thing about carriers is they have a wider range of capabilities than battleships
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Wait, the Missouri? Wasn't that the ship in MGS4?
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:sigh:
The Missouri is arguably the most famous battleship of WW2. It was on her forward deck, IIRC, that the treaty officially ending the conflict between the US and Japan was signed. As a side note, the Alabama (http://www.ussalabama.com/)was alongside the Missouri at the signing ceremony.
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The Missouri was in fact in MGS4, yes.
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The fact that the Yamato could be taken out by WWII bombers and torpedo planes
Yes. It was destroyed by several dozen 500 lb bombs and moving mines, which happened to be launched/dropped from planes. It seems natural for a WWII destroyer to be taken out by several dozen aircraft ALMOST 400 AIRCRAFT, doesn't it? A ship with no AA missiles, which was also quite devoid of air cover during that instance. When it was finally taken out of action, it had sustained 17 hits, and only sank because its magazines went up.
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The fact that the Yamato could be taken out by WWII bombers and torpedo planes suggests that Missouri is going to end up just the same way in the face of a saturation ASM attack. The same is probably true of today's carriers, mind, but at least they don't have to get so close.
Faulty comparison. Yamato and Musashi proved themselves effectively immune to thousand-pound bomb hits as far as degrading their ability to move and fire main battery went. Without torpedo planes, it would have taken hundreds to stop them. Since ASMs Do Not Work That Way, and in many cases scoring an ASM hit on the superstructure would be a result of the missile malfunctioning and attacking higher than intended (with the exception of the Harpoon family's popup manuver, intended to break the ship's back, anti-ship missiles are uniformly designed to impact close to the waterline because you sink ships with holes that let water in), they remain vunerable, but not that vunerable.
The problem with them is that they are extremely expensive to operate and man.
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Furthermore, ship-based artillery is typically a thing of the past nowadays. Railguns/coilguns, if or when they overcome their technical difficulties, may change that, but we'll have to wait. Conventional artillery... if you can call a 16in cannon conventional, can only shoot so far. This makes a battleship good for a limited amount of roles.
If you're going to make amphibious assaults, operating artillery is probably more cost-effective than shooting missiles. And you can probably carry more shells than missiles... but that depends on the ship. But since we're talking about battleships... Conventional shells certainly don't have the pinpoint accuracy of a missile strike, but they're unbeatable for volume fire. The Iowa-Class boats were actually used for this role several times, if I'm not mistaken. Keep in mind, however, that such engagements are very few on the modern war front.
Combine long-range railguns and a massive missile battery, though, and you might have something. Hard to justify the cost, though.
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The fact that the Yamato could be taken out by WWII bombers and torpedo planes
Yes. It was destroyed by several dozen 500 lb bombs and moving mines, which happened to be launched/dropped from planes. It seems natural for a WWII destroyer to be taken out by several dozen aircraft ALMOST 400 AIRCRAFT, doesn't it? A ship with no AA missiles, which was also quite devoid of air cover during that instance. When it was finally taken out of action, it had sustained 17 hits, and only sank because its magazines went up.
17 hits is laughable compared to the number of missiles involved in, say, Soviet strategies, or in wargames against a simulated Iran. Moreover the number was 19 (at least according to one source?) and while the 12 bomb hits were relevant only the 7 torpedoes were real killers. It sank not because of the magazines (though those were the final blow) but because of flooding.
It was escorted by a number of ships, most of which were lost.
Don't start flipping out like you did on the CBT boards.
The fact that the Yamato could be taken out by WWII bombers and torpedo planes suggests that Missouri is going to end up just the same way in the face of a saturation ASM attack. The same is probably true of today's carriers, mind, but at least they don't have to get so close.
Faulty comparison. Yamato and Musashi proved themselves effectively immune to thousand-pound bomb hits as far as degrading their ability to move and fire main battery went. Without torpedo planes, it would have taken hundreds to stop them. Since ASMs Do Not Work That Way, and in many cases scoring an ASM hit on the superstructure would be a result of the missile malfunctioning and attacking higher than intended (with the exception of the Harpoon family's popup manuver, intended to break the ship's back, anti-ship missiles are uniformly designed to impact close to the waterline because you sink ships with holes that let water in), they remain vunerable, but not that vunerable.
The problem with them is that they are extremely expensive to operate and man.
Yamato was destroyed by torpedo hits just below the waterline at the bow and stern. This is not a difficult kind of damage to replicate. Moreover, in the modern naval environment, Missouri - or any other battleship - would be pulled out of action after one good ASM hit or a suicide speedboat detonation.
And yes, the latter point is the relevant one. Battleships are huge, expensive, lumbering targets that provide little benefit for a massive expenditure of resources. In RTS terms, they need to be made cheaper or seriously buffed to become useful.
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Not trying to flip out, the bold caps was because I really thought it was only a few dozen until I looked it up.
Hmmm, the wiki bills it as having been hit by ten torpedoes, which would probably sink any ship ever set afloat by man, battleship or otherwise.
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If you're going to make amphibious assaults, operating artillery is probably more cost-effective than shooting missiles. And you can probably carry more shells than missiles... but that depends on the ship. But since we're talking about battleships... Conventional shells certainly don't have the pinpoint accuracy of a missile strike, but they're unbeatable for volume fire. The Iowa-Class boats were actually used for this role several times, if I'm not mistaken. Keep in mind, however, that such engagements are very few on the modern war front.
To be honest, with modern technology the 16" can be made as accurate as any weapon. It helps that the propellants that they were using before the ships were retired had made massive advances in reliability.
Current plans for amphibous support include a VLS ATACMS and another drop-in replacement setup for the Burke's VLS launcher, but neither of them honestly hold up well under close examination to ship's gunfire.
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The ship will not be able to fight without the superstructure. End of story. Radar, comms, everything: it's up there.
Actually, there are backups in each turret tower. It's an older system, but the main guns are fully capable of shooting and targeting on their own.
not to mention that with thing like wireless communication and stuff, ta ship can recieve targeting data from other friendly vessels without the need for a radar of it's own - and the recievers(s) don't even have to be exposed.
EDIT:
Also, the Yamato was a flawed design. It's waterline armor and bulkheads, as well as it's anti-air armament were laughably inferior to the Iowa.
The Yamato was large, but ultimatively poorly designed.
So saying "Yamato was sunk with 19 hits, so Iowa will be too" is like saying "The T-84 was destroyed by a RPG hit, so the Abrams will be too". They are different beasts.
Ultimatively, a battleship is a huge, juicy target - but then again, any large vessel is. It's not like planes for an aircraft carrier or missiles are exactly cheap these days.
The value of Iowas is as a shore artillery platform - it can lob thousands of cheap and effective rounds. IIRC, each turret has a 700-round magazine. That's a lot of bang. Compared ot the number of missiles that need to be hauled and fired, and their cost, it has clear advanatages.
And a funny little fact - the Iowas were designed to protect carriers - form both enemy warships AND aircraft. They proved their worth by helping repel 4 enemy air attacks.
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Battleships, including the Iowa, are massive floating targets, historically capable of putting a lot of ordinance on stationary shore targets but with debatable effect. Historically most battleships have been killed by internal explosion (often accidental), mines, or submarine torpedoes - all of which remain possible if not extraordinarily threatening today.
The presence of backup fire control for the main guns is basically irrelevant when battleship main guns are about as potent as a sword in modern naval combat. Now, certainly, guns can be useful (infantry still carry bayonets and knives, akin to swords!) but they shouldn't be centerpiece weapons.
There is a reason they have been phased out: they are obsolete and serve no real function.
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Yep. Battleships represent a massive investment in terms of shipbuilding and personnel requirements, which can usually be taken out by a much cheaper weapons system. They are useful only in a very narrow set of circumstances, and their role can be filled much cheaper by a Carrier group, which has the additional benefit of being more defensible and more versatile.
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The presence of backup fire control for the main guns is basically irrelevant when battleship main guns are about as potent as a sword in modern naval combat. Now, certainly, guns can be useful (infantry still carry bayonets and knives, akin to swords!) but they shouldn't be centerpiece weapons.
And IIRC the secondary fire-control was removed from most of the Iowas in their eighties modernizations anyways, as visual FC is irrevelant compared to radar computerized FC.
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One thing battleships do extremely well is bombarding stationary targets into rubble from long range. They're floating artillery platforms. You can either fire several very expensive Tomahawk missiles to penetrate a hardened bunker, or you can fire a dozen or two 16 in. shells to do it for a fraction of the price.
It could also be argued that a lot of the problems with battleships is that they are old. A battleship designed from the keel up with 21st century technology could potentially be a very useful carrier escort.
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It could be a useful carrier escort if a) Anyone tries taking out carriers with surface ships b) Destroyers and CGMs suddenly become very bad at intercepting incoming threats c) Carrier air wings lose their bombing capability d) The aforementioned Cruisers and Destroyers get decannoned.
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Iowa's are equipped with many missile systems to boot. They don't relay just on their main guns anymore.
Not to mention that if you're going to throw an aircraft carrier + all of it's aircraft against a battleship, then the cost difference is massive.
A battleship with a escort of several specialized anti-air destroyers?
but we're kinda moving off the tracks here. This thread was supposed to be about death rays, no?
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Well, you could always mount death rays on a battleship.
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Well, you could always mount death rays on a battleship.
imagine how bigof a death ray you could mount on one...
but then again, you would need either LoS to target, or some mirror system that probably wouldn't work that well...
may lose range compared to a BIG old gun
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True, but you do get a massive laser, especially if said battleship is nuclear-powered. You could also possibly mount laser anti-missile systems on it to detonate far away anti-ship missiles.
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That would pretty much be the only reason to use directed energy weapons. A BBs capability as a fire support vessel kinda depends on its indirect fire capability....
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I don't suppose building a new cheaper platform for mounting 16 inchers out fitted with modern fire control etc. to support Marines landings would be a better solution? I assume if you making landings you have already achieved local air and naval superiority?
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Perhaps, but there's a limit as to the size of a vessel that could remain stable while firing those suckers. I heard somewhere that even the Iowa's recoil something like 10 or 15 degrees when they're really going at it. So something cheaper, which would probably be smaller would probably capsize itself.
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I don't suppose building a new cheaper platform for mounting 16 inchers out fitted with modern fire control etc. to support Marines landings would be a better solution? I assume if you making landings you have already achieved local air and naval superiority?
That's why they want the Zumwalt's 155mm and, eventually, the railgun.
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Perhaps, but there's a limit as to the size of a vessel that could remain stable while firing those suckers. I heard somewhere that even the Iowa's recoil something like 10 or 15 degrees when they're really going at it. So something cheaper, which would probably be smaller would probably capsize itself.
I was angling towards a purpose built platform not just stuffing a triple 16' turret on an Areilgh Burke hull, maybe a trimaran. :P
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Perhaps, but there's a limit as to the size of a vessel that could remain stable while firing those suckers. I heard somewhere that even the Iowa's recoil something like 10 or 15 degrees when they're really going at it. So something cheaper, which would probably be smaller would probably capsize itself.
I was angling towards a purpose built platform not just stuffing a triple 16' turret on an Areilgh Burke hull, maybe a trimaran. :P
like congress would approve of such an ugly design..
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Actually, the one place where battleships would make sense again would be in space. There's no reason to build fighters, so you'd be back to the old frigate/cruiser/battleship model.
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Actually, the one place where battleships would make sense again would be in space. There's no reason to build fighters, so you'd be back to the old frigate/cruiser/battleship model.
So, if you don't build fighters how do you ward off enemy bombers?
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Considering that a viable space bomber looks more like an ICBM, I'd say the normal antimissile defense systems are a better investment. Seriously, outside of some fictional universes (or some handwavium), space fighters are probably not viable.
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Considering that a viable space bomber looks more like an ICBM, I'd say the normal antimissile defense systems are a better investment. Seriously, outside of some fictional universes (or some handwavium), space fighters are probably not viable.
i think that IRL space combat will be stupidly long range (like, leading lasers becasue of vast distances, or short, if both parties develop elaborate system that fool everything from radar to spacedar.
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like congress would approve of such an ugly design..
It would look a lot like a scaled-up LCS.
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i think that IRL space combat will be stupidly long range (like, leading lasers becasue of vast distances, or short, if both parties develop elaborate system that fool everything from radar to spacedar.
As always, the real world ruins everyone's fun.
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Actually, the one place where battleships would make sense again would be in space. There's no reason to build fighters, so you'd be back to the old frigate/cruiser/battleship model.
So, if you don't build fighters how do you ward off enemy bombers?
There won't be any bombers.
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Untile we discover something like subspace that might be true.
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Wrong. There is a lot more handwavium involved in creating space fighters (and bombers).
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unless EMP tech results in the total defeat of electronic guidance systems for missles whithin Xkm of a ship, which is the only logic reason to create human-guided delivery vehicle for missles.
but lasers will likely work better, anyway.
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EMP will do as much damage to computer-driven human craft as it would to electronically controlled craft. Both are going to require a stupid amount of electronics to work. Of course, that amount of damage is likely to be zero since they'll both be hardened.
Lasers, missiles, and kinetic weapons all have a (theoretical) place in space warfare, with lasers being the up-close knife fighting weapons.
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Are we discounting strike craft in general or just manned ones?
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Mostly just manned ones. Unmanned weapon buses make a lot of sense (I think).
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IMHO, 1 LY is the utter maximum possible engagment range in a future space battle.
Frankly, I expect the optimal battle range to be a LOT smaller. accuracy, lag and focusing will all present a problem at longer ranges.
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IMHO, 1 LY is the utter maximum possible engagment range in a future space battle.
Frankly, I expect the optimal battle range to be a LOT smaller. accuracy, lag and focusing will all present a problem at longer ranges.
:lol:
Sorry Trashman, but you just made my day. This has to be the best understatement of the year up so far, given the context and all.
I'm barely able to resist the temptation of calculating the corresponding F-number and Airy radius of that kind of system.
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how could you possibly aim to shoot someone and hit them a year later?
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IMHO, 1 LY is the utter maximum possible engagment range in a future space battle.
Try a couple orders of magnitude smaller. At least.
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i believe energy in the EM scale takes around 8 mins to reach earth from the sun so until the advent of faster than light signaling anything over 1/8 of an AU is unfeasible and even then battle would be more miss than hit
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how could you possibly aim to shoot someone and hit them a year later?
Hope that they drift in a perfectly straight line for the next year and lead accordingly? :p
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Redirect a giant mass of space rocks and send it towards their planet?
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Planet to planet artillary comes to mind.
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I would put the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM engagement range, for a very, VERY long time, at about 1 LH. Still going to take a bit, but I think missiles will be able to engage at that range. Effectively, well, that is another matter, but still engage.
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You can attack a planet that way since they travel in predictable patterns.
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IMHO, 1 LY is the utter maximum possible engagment range in a future space battle.
Frankly, I expect the optimal battle range to be a LOT smaller. accuracy, lag and focusing will all present a problem at longer ranges.
Hahaha, nowhere near that with ships.
With planets the maximum engagement range is just about infinite, though.
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IMHO, 1 LY is the utter maximum possible engagment range in a future space battle.
Frankly, I expect the optimal battle range to be a LOT smaller. accuracy, lag and focusing will all present a problem at longer ranges.
:lol:
Sorry Trashman, but you just made my day. This has to be the best understatement of the year up so far, given the context and all.
I'm barely able to resist the temptation of calculating the corresponding F-number and Airy radius of that kind of system.
Ups..typo. It should have said 1 LS.
Anyways, methinks it's far more realistic to expect enegement at 10.000 - 100.000 km ranges.
Keeping your weapons accurate and effective at long ranges will always present a big problem.
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Humans being humans, the space wars of the future will only be fought over distances where you press a button and watch your enemy in some kind of gamma lazer or fusion-pumped shrapnel bomb.
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I think actual engagements will be at Light-second fractions.
However battles will take place at a scale of light-minutes as long as inertia isn't dealt with. The reason is the human body's abyssal acceleration tolerance compared to machines. If you can make a nuclear-bomb-pumped laser-head missile that can accelerate at 100Gs, then the missiles and the fire-control tether drones will have a massive advantage over the ships. They'd be a lot harder to shoot down and not to mention cheaper as well.
For a while you could compensate with point-defense, but the laserhead will put an end to that. The moment it's in firing range it will detonate and fire lasers in your direction. Given the sophistry of the on-board AI it will do it with a considerable lightspeed lag between you. The laserheads will have numbers and multiple spread-out laser beams on their end to push the equation to their end.
The ship will have better tracking and processing power. However the ship will also have to deal with heat. The laserhead doesn't as he's a one-shot weapon that annihilates itself when firing.
It begs the question whether you'd even need a human manned spaceship...
...and the answer is probably, but only to analyze the tactics and strategy of the other side's drones.
The only role of the manned ship will be to update the fire-plan of the drones and look for a loophole in the enemy's setup. Since machines aren't good enough at creativity (yet! with AI humans will be absolutely redundant).
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"If the enemy is in range, so are you"
The second the bomb-pumped laser is in range, so is inside the ships laser defense range.
It also raises the question of how effective a weapon the lasers are. Can it really top mass driver, particle accelerators and the like in raw damage? I doubt it.
then there's also the matter of cost.
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Particle accelerators are pretty dubious at the moment. Rather than cutting/blasting, they'd probably work by irradiating crew. So no, they wouldn't do much 'raw damage'.
Each weapons system may have its place. Lasers would probably be a primary one.
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personally i think lasers would be implausible unless massive outputs could be achieved as ship hulls would have to be shielded against high energy exposure to survive long term beyond the earths shielding effects e.g. particle storms and solar flares emitted from the sun as well as planetary reentry on top of that when we go inter stellar there will be other high energy phenomenons
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I'd wager when we have spaceships capable of combat, laser technology will have advanced considerably.
And hey, if we already have lasers capable of being used in a real-life combat situation, it is safe to say laser will be the primary choice for a weapon, unless something better comes. Speed of light "amunition" and whatnot.
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I have no doubt it's coming. Though I doubt it would even replace the 50 cal cannon.
F-22s use 20mm rotary cannons that make .50-caliber machine guns look like pop guns by comparison. An F-22 can empty its entire 480-round magazine in four and a half seconds (doing this all at once probably would be rather hard on the gun though).
You don't shoot down bombs, not even today, and we've got ENORMOUSLY better equipment nowadays.
Sure, a couple bombers maybe, but we had three. One of them would have gotten it, surely :P.
Also, wouldn't be Berlin. We didn't A-bomb Tokyo.
There would have been no point in A-bombing Tokyo. The entire city was razed to the ground by firebombs. Firebombs actually killed far more people than A-bombs, because we dropped thousands upon thousands on Japan's cities until every standing building burnt to the ground.
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"If the enemy is in range, so are you"
The second the bomb-pumped laser is in range, so is inside the ships laser defense range.
It also raises the question of how effective a weapon the lasers are. Can it really top mass driver, particle accelerators and the like in raw damage? I doubt it.
then there's also the matter of cost.
Particle accelerators are c-fractional weapons. Mass drivers are even more feeble.
Lasers just by hitting at light-speed have an immense advantage in range as light-speed lag affects them less.
You're still right though: when the missile's in range to strike the ship, so is the ship in range to strike the missile. This is why wrote about the heat management difference.
This is why the acceleration difference could mean the end of manned ships directly engaging each other. The missile will be able to do at least a 100G-s (our current defense missiles can do this) and it is reasonable to expect at least twice if not three times that acceleration in time. Unless you redesign the humans themselves they would be limited to woeful 10Gs and that's very-very optimistic.
With a considerable light-speed lag acceleration becomes a very important question as it determines how big a volume of space you could be in the moment the laser (or even slower particle) beam reaches you. Bigger acceleration --> bigger volume --> less chance of a hit.
However you're right: particle beams and kinetic weapons are a lot more destructive. They also have a lot smaller "range" as they are slower. To achieve a hit you'd need to be a lot closer...
...and the closer you get, the better chances the laser has to maul you.
Armor incidentally is useless, as even fractions of acceleration would protect you better. Still since ships are limited by the humans they'd likely still mount some as advanced fusion torch drive designs tend to give more power than what humans could withstand. So ships would still take more hits to kill than a missile.
Initially while point-defense could handle laserheads through sheer difference in computing power ships would have a laser primary armament. When the missiles get smart enough - and actual laserhead X-ray laser nuclear warheads are miniaturized enough - ships will have to shift to missile heavy armaments.
The reason why I'm so high up on the laserhead is that it deals with several issues rather elegantly:
-It can be deployed far away from your ship, so your weapons are no longer in a single basket. It also ensures that the ship itself along with its crew won't be damaged.
-Even while being a missile (...and therefore possesing "unlimited range" if you're willing to put ballistic parts into their trajectory) it still wield a lightspeed weapon and therefore will pose the same threat to the ship like a laser equipped ship would.
-Since it creates the laser through a nuclear explosion it doesn't have to deal withe insane heat buildup that all lasers suffer from. (Ships using normal lasers would have around 20% efficiency. So you need to deal with four times the heat of the same energy as what you pumped into the enemy).
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True, a railgun/coligun has a smaller effective range, but the power of a hit is terrifying.
Now immagine addinga smart round (has a few thrusters to adjsut it's vector a bit), and it's accuracy increases.
Lasers do have one weak point tough - to do real damage, they have to hit the same spot for a while. Keeping a laser on the same spot at the distances we're talking about, when both ships move at several G's? Far harder than just getting a sinlge hit.
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It's a possibility. We don't really know how effective laser weapons will be. A pulsed laser weapon can saw through stuff pretty fast.
You've got some stuff backwards, though. Railgun/coilgun effective range is far longer than laser range. You can use your railgun/coilgun to fire shrapnel all over the target's vector.
Keeping a laser on a ship that's only moving at several Gs wouldn't be a tremendously difficult task.
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True, a railgun/coligun has a smaller effective range, but the power of a hit is terrifying.
Now immagine addinga smart round (has a few thrusters to adjsut it's vector a bit), and it's accuracy increases.
Lasers do have one weak point tough - to do real damage, they have to hit the same spot for a while. Keeping a laser on the same spot at the distances we're talking about, when both ships move at several G's? Far harder than just getting a sinlge hit.
They also obey the inverse square law--the farther away the target is, the less damage is done.
Interestingly enough, this same principle helps explain why SETI really hasn't found anything--radio signals from an alien civilization can only travel a few lightyears before degrading to the point where you can't distinguish them from cosmic background radiation.
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Lasers don't obey the inverse square law. They do drop off by distance due to beam area dispersion, but it's not by inverse square.
Common misconception.
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Would there even be a reason to bother with lasers? Wouldn't kinetic energy weapons be cheaper and more effective?
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Lasers would be much more accurate and difficult to avoid.
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Would there even be a reason to bother with lasers? Wouldn't kinetic energy weapons be cheaper and more effective?
No. They make awesome knife-fighting weapons because they can't be dodged and they strike faster and more efficiently than kinetic weapons. A good laser can get through a meter of graphite (probably the best laser armor known to man) in a second at 5000 KM. At half a light-second you can get through one millimeter per second, which is pretty good.
However they produce a ton of heat - basically, they're blast furnaces that produce laser light as a byproduct - and they're quite short-ranged.
Plus you can shoot down missiles.
At range however, Trashman's right, coilgun/railgun/shrapnel launches from aforementioned system (or even from a chemical gun) would be the way to go. Missiles too. EDIT: I take that back. Thinking about the distances, kinetic energy weapons probably suck. The only way to get a hit is to calculate the target's potential vectors (given a low-acceleration environment where he can't alter vector too rapidly) and just fill every potential space in his path with junk. That might work.
The usual metaphor is that you've got a cop with a revolver (you can't dodge it, but it might miss), a shotgun (it's got a wider spread and a lot of stopping power, and in our metaphor, it doesn't lose power with distance, unlike the revolver), and an attack dog, which takes a long while to get there and can be shot but doesn't stop.
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So a reasonable weapons mix would be guided missiles and UASV drones for long range, some type of KEW for medium range and lasers for short range? With ECM, counter missiles and point defense lasers for defense?
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In a realistic environment, a manned ship would carry massive numbers of drones for long-range fights (99% of engagements, probably), maybe some KEWs (maybe railguns if you had awesome fire control or for planetary bombardment), and a lot of point defenses, including some lasers.
If ships actually met each other more often they might carry more straight-up weapons like missiles and lasers. Shrapnel missiles are probably the way to go.
ECM is actually kind of dubious in space.
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It's a possibility. We don't really know how effective laser weapons will be. A pulsed laser weapon can saw through stuff pretty fast.
Not fast enough. Especially since you can make armors designed to withstand lasers longer. Carbon armor has a high vaporization energy and is great for that purpose.
You've got some stuff backwards, though. Railgun/coilgun effective range is far longer than laser range. You can use your railgun/coilgun to fire shrapnel all over the target's vector.
A sapce shotgun would be terribly ineffective. The spread of shrapnel would be too great at the distances invlolved. It wouldn't hit anything. A "smart" bullet would be a far better solution.
Keeping a laser on a ship that's only moving at several Gs wouldn't be a tremendously difficult task.
Oh no?
And don't think that lasers will automatically hit their targets either. There are many factors that can cause a miss. Off the top of his head, Dr. John Schilling mentions:
Uncertain target location due to finite sensor resolution
Uncertain target motion due to sensor glint or shape effects
Sensor boresight error due to finite manufacturing tolerances
Target motion during sensor integration time
Analog-to-digital conversion errors of sensor data
Software errors in fire control system
Hardware errors in fire control system
Digital-to-analog conversion errors of gunlaying servo commands
Target motion during weapon aiming time
Weapon boresight error due to finite manufacturing tolerances
Weapon structural distortion due to inertial effects of rapid slew
Weapon structural distortion due to external or internal vibration
Weapon structural distortion due to thermal expansion during firing
And we haven't even begun to include target countermeasures...
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Let's put it this way, aiming a laser would be much easier than aiming any other "projectile" weapon, since the errors you pointed out make much matters much, much worse for stuff like say, railguns.
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Not fast enough. Especially since you can make armors designed to withstand lasers longer. Carbon armor has a high vaporization energy and is great for that purpose.
Not as good as graphite, see the earlier remark about a meter of graphite armor at 5000 k (which is knife fight range.)
A sapce shotgun would be terribly ineffective. The spread of shrapnel would be too great at the distances invlolved. It wouldn't hit anything. A "smart" bullet would be a far better solution.
A 'space shotgun' isn't a shotgun at all. The objective is to deny an area of space by flooding it with shrapnel. It doesn't have to be fired all at once, shotgun-style; you just need to put a lot of crap into the target's flight path. You can use missiles to get a shrapnel warhead closer. Great way to get a kill, especially if you're scattering a ton of dust.
A smart bullet is just a missile. Already addressed. You can launch it from a coilgun if you like, though.
Oh no?
Followed by a laundry list from the website I linked earlier.
Those factors are all explanations for why lasers won't constantly hit. As I said time and again earlier, lasers can miss. Keeping a laser on a target, however, is not particularly difficult - it's one of the easier parts of the challenge today.
It's a hell of a lot easier than aiming a kinetic energy weapon, and at knife fight range the laser is a better bet. Every kind of weapon has its place. KEWs are the trickiest to make useful, though.
Please read what people post.
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A sapce shotgun would be terribly ineffective. The spread of shrapnel would be too great at the distances invlolved. It wouldn't hit anything. A "smart" bullet would be a far better solution.
Not really. The concept that's being looked for here is called "ideal contact ellipse" and is one already routinely tackled in modern gun systems. (Some, not many, missiles have the option of being able to conduct evasive manuvers; the ideal contact ellipse concept is a direct response to that and the reason why most missiles don't.) It is, of course, infinitely more manageable at short range, but since a ship commited to battle is already going to be in motion at fairly high speed and thus his manuvering options will be somewhat limited, and we have at our disposal already weapons with ridiculous high fire rates (like the Metal Storm system), it would be entirely feasible for relatively short range combat in space terms. Orbital combat would probably play out at suitable ranges for projectiles to play a significant role.
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Lst time I checked graphite is a allotrope of carbon... so it pritty much is a type of carbon armor.
And no. A smart bullet is not really a missile. Missile is self-propelled. A smart bullet isn't and can only make minor course corrections. It effectively gives a railgun a cone-like field of fire..altough you'd still fire it when almost perfelcy alligned, to maxime the chances of a hit.
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A sapce shotgun would be terribly ineffective. The spread of shrapnel would be too great at the distances invlolved. It wouldn't hit anything. A "smart" bullet would be a far better solution.
Not really. The concept that's being looked for here is called "ideal contact ellipse" and is one already routinely tackled in modern gun systems. (Some, not many, missiles have the option of being able to conduct evasive manuvers; the ideal contact ellipse concept is a direct response to that and the reason why most missiles don't.) It is, of course, infinitely more manageable at short range, but since a ship commited to battle is already going to be in motion at fairly high speed and thus his manuvering options will be somewhat limited, and we have at our disposal already weapons with ridiculous high fire rates (like the Metal Storm system), it would be entirely feasible for relatively short range combat in space terms. Orbital combat would probably play out at suitable ranges for projectiles to play a significant role.
Yep, that.
Lst time I checked graphite is a allotrope of carbon... so it pritty much is a type of carbon armor.
Precisely. And did you read the post? A good laser will blow through a meter of it (a meter!) in a second at knife fight range.
And no. A smart bullet is not really a missile. Missile is self-propelled. A smart bullet isn't and can only make minor course corrections. It effectively gives a railgun a cone-like field of fire..altough you'd still fire it when almost perfelcy alligned, to maxime the chances of a hit.
Why? That's farcically ineffective. It can reach a tiny fraction of the range a missile can and it'll almost certainly never hit. Why not just fire a missile from the railgun?
Unlike lasers, KEWs are slow. Unlike missiles, they can't adjust course or coast-until-burn to engage a maneuvering target.
KEWs make a lot of sense using the ideal contact ellipse concept NGTM-1R outlined, though.
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Would drones (I'm assuming there would probably be bomber version analogous to a Backfire and some type of multi role fighter/interceptor like a F-16?) be able to operate within the range an enemy capital ship's point defense lasers? Would we still see a standard battle group mix of CVs, CGs, DDGs, FFGs or would ships have basically the same capabilities only different tonnages? Finally would warships be high performance or still relatively lumbering?
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It's not going to be navy in space. In a realistic setting, it's all unmanned, all the time. I doubt we'd see any classifications that firm - just a lot of drone vehicles that might or might not be recoverable. Big ships to carry little ships across long distances might make sense, as might tankers (though fuel is massive, which in turn demands even more fuel). Big ships could mount bigger lasers and more armor and missiles and parasite ships.
Warships would be 'high performance' in the sense that they would go really fast after a lot of acceleration, but maneuverability would be quite limited in terms of altering one's vector, probably. Zero-zero engagements just aren't likely to happen.
In the near future, the whole 'stealth in space' debate aside, it really may be a lot like submarine warfare.
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Even unmanned capital ships? I assume that would mean your depending on AI since having ground based controllers would be inefficient due to the signal travel times?
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Y'know, that's actually a pretty fair point. You might need manned warships as control stations.
But given lightspeed lag your drones will be operating autonomously anyway, so...I dunno.
Life support sucks. It sucks really, really hard. It means you need air, water, radiation shielding, crew spaces, and G limits.
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Yeah, though sometimes I think we are stepping on the edge of the precipice with unmanned/automated warfare. And not for the Skynet reason, I just tend to worry it makes war easy. On one hand its removing troops from the front lines which is a good thing, an AWACs UAV gets shot down you lose a piece of hardware rather then 24 aircrew.
On the other hand conventional war is hard to wage, the government generally needs to convince the populace that its a needed operation, they need to conscript and train troops, deploy them to the combat zone and support them. If your having kids come home in body bags people are going to stand up and question its legitimacy. The cost in sweat and blood makes conducting war hard and something to be avoided as a last resort. If we get to a point where most of our forces are unmanned or automated will it remove those roadblocks to combat? Will governments need wrack their conscience or have to sell the war to the populace if all they have to do is let loose their robot MBTs and UAVs?
In the short term it seems like a damn good idea, I just wonder if in the long term its a dangerous can of worms.
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Can't space dudes all just get along?
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ECM is actually kind of dubious in space.
I disagree. Weapon systems which need to close to short range to attack/hit need to have a way of not being blasted to hell by point defense lasers or projectile weapons. Some means of giving a false reading to hostile sensors must therefore be achieved... that, and high speed/agility. If your missiles keep getting shot down because of radar/[insert sensor type here] guided weapons, you'll need to invest in a similar weapon that can pump that sensor array full of noise so it can get close enough do damage.
@ StarSlayer:
Those are my thoughts exactly. Dehumanizing the battlefield desensitizes the combatant who's got noting but cheap [compared to actual lives] toys with guns on them to loose. Thus, the lives of the enemy become quite expendable as well. The truth is that war and politics are the same in the end. When the morals of the ones who've got nothing real at stake fade, we're all in trouble.
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I disagree. Weapon systems which need to close to short range to attack/hit need to have a way of not being blasted to hell by point defense lasers or projectile weapons.
Saturation is, was, and pretty much forever shall be the one truly reliable method of doing this.
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ECM is actually kind of dubious in space.
I disagree. Weapon systems which need to close to short range to attack/hit need to have a way of not being blasted to hell by point defense lasers or projectile weapons. Some means of giving a false reading to hostile sensors must therefore be achieved... that, and high speed/agility. If your missiles keep getting shot down because of radar/[insert sensor type here] guided weapons, you'll need to invest in a similar weapon that can pump that sensor array full of noise so it can get close enough do damage.
It has little to do with that and a lot with the arguments that ECM doesn't actually work in space.
Thermal, visual, there are a lot of ways to perform detection. All arguably counterable, but there's a debate ongoing.
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Hmmm...
Looks like I might need to do more research, eh? Righto, then.
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Just I just read this paragraph and couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"But the energy-sucking imploder lance's range was insanely short, in terms of space speeds and
distances, barely a dozen kilometers. Now, ships had to cooperate to grapple, to slow and close up to
maneuver. Given also the small scale of wormhole volumes, fighting looked like it might suddenly become
tight and intimate once again, except that too-tight formations invited "sun wall" attacks of massed
nuclears. Round and round. It was hinted that ramming and boarding could actually become practical
popular tactics once again. Till the next surprise arrived from the devil's workshops, anyway. Miles
longed briefly for the good old days of his grandfather's generation, when people could kill each other
from a clean fifty thousand kilometers. Just bright sparks." - Lois McMaster Bujold: The Vor Game.
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An un-death ray :)
http://m.youtube.com/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4tNk6h2_khA&v=4tNk6h2_khA&gl=GB
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Hmmm...
Looks like I might need to do more research, eh? Righto, then.
Well, you might be right - ECM could be fantastic and practical as a way to help missiles get to their targets.
I'm just not...sure. How do you jam lidar, radar, thermal, visual pattern recognition, star occlusion, simple vectoring of any thrusting target...I've heard it argued again and again that it's basically impossible. I really could be wrong, though.
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ECM could be fantastic and practical as a way to help missiles get to their targets.
Um, isn't ECM supposed to prevent missiles from getting to you?
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Precisely. And did you read the post? A good laser will blow through a meter of it (a meter!) in a second at knife fight range.
1 meter. And you have to keep the laser pointing at the same spot for a full second. A enemy ship can move by a considerable ammount within a second.
And 5000 klicks is nothing. If you have lasers, getting that close is suicidal - you just make enemy mass driver more accurate.
Why? That's farcically ineffective. It can reach a tiny fraction of the range a missile can and it'll almost certainly never hit. Why not just fire a missile from the railgun?
Unlike lasers, KEWs are slow. Unlike missiles, they can't adjust course or coast-until-burn to engage a maneuvering target.
KEWs make a lot of sense using the ideal contact ellipse concept NGTM-1R outlined, though.
Innefective? Quite the contrary.
Missiles are more expensive and their powerfull engines burning make them stand out and very easily detectable. They are also bigger by their very nature, so you can carry less of them.
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I always wonder why you don't make the same arguments against other weapons.
If an enemy ship can move fast enough so that lasers have difficulty handling aiming, what does that say about other weapons whose ammunitions travel at sub-light speeds? :P
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ECM could be fantastic and practical as a way to help missiles get to their targets.
Um, isn't ECM supposed to prevent missiles from getting to you?
It works both ways. Your missiles or their drone buses can have ECM.
Precisely. And did you read the post? A good laser will blow through a meter of it (a meter!) in a second at knife fight range.
1 meter. And you have to keep the laser pointing at the same spot for a full second. A enemy ship can move by a considerable ammount within a second.
And 5000 klicks is nothing. If you have lasers, getting that close is suicidal - you just make enemy mass driver more accurate.
One meter is a ****-ton of armor. One second is barely anything in space warfare, where you'll know the enemy's precise vector minutes or hours in advance. And keeping the laser on the target is a trivial challenge compared to intercepting it with a KEW. Remember, the laser moves at lightspeed. The KEW moves at ****-all.
Furthermore, it's been said again and again that lasers are knife-fight weapons, so yes, 5000 klicks is indeed nothing. If you continue to show evidence that you do not read other people's posts then you'll get monkeyed again.
Why? That's farcically ineffective. It can reach a tiny fraction of the range a missile can and it'll almost certainly never hit. Why not just fire a missile from the railgun?
Unlike lasers, KEWs are slow. Unlike missiles, they can't adjust course or coast-until-burn to engage a maneuvering target.
KEWs make a lot of sense using the ideal contact ellipse concept NGTM-1R outlined, though.
Innefective? Quite the contrary.
Missiles are more expensive and their powerfull engines burning make them stand out and very easily detectable. They are also bigger by their very nature, so you can carry less of them.
This argument was originally put forth in the 40s by Willy Ley. It was annihilated. You're already proposing firing a missile (guided projectile or 'smart bullet') from your railgun. And you have to. Because at interplanetary speeds, the target will have moved, on average, three miles between the time the weapon was fired and the time the projectile reached the end of the barrel.
A KEW is effective at tiny, tiny ranges. A missile can fly across solar systems. It can cruise like a bullet and then adjust its course to intercept. You're going to need a lot of bullets, not to mention a huge railgun, to get near the effectiveness of a single missile.
Your problem isn't that you think KEWs are effective - they are. Your problem is that you're using them wrong. There is absolutely no reason for fancy, high-tech smart bullets. All you need to do is throw a beer can into the target's path to ruin his day. The muzzle velocity of the weapon will be trivial compared to the intercept velocity with an enemy ship.
KEWs are great. But they will never be as good at knife-fighting as lasers (too slow, they miss too much) and they will certainly never be as important as a ship's primary weapon: the drone, the kill vehicle, the missile. They have a place as area-denial, ideal contact ellipse weapons, dust that you spew into the target's path. They could also work well for point defense (though a laser/particle beam can knock out target electronics without having to waste time on actually blasting through.)
I always wonder why you don't make the same arguments against other weapons.
If an enemy ship can move fast enough so that lasers have difficulty handling aiming, what does that say about other weapons whose ammunitions travel at sub-light speeds? :P
Yeah, exactly. Keeping a laser aimed at an enemy vessel for one second is trivial compared to keeping your weapon barrel pointed at a target ship's predicted position as it alters vector for long enough to fire, and then actually getting your slow-as-balls projectile to the target. Even adding thrusters to make a 'smart bullet' is fundamentally silly because in order to have thrusters and fuel that can match the acceleration of the target you'll be firing a mini-missile instead of a cheap beer can projectile.
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I always wonder why you don't make the same arguments against other weapons.
If an enemy ship can move fast enough so that lasers have difficulty handling aiming, what does that say about other weapons whose ammunitions travel at sub-light speeds? :P
Because other weapons don't have to keep hitting the same spot? That is a big problem, regardles of what Batutta is telling you. Depending on speed, the ship can move hunderds of meters in the space of a second.
A missile or mass driver has to hit it..anywhere..once. If the laser doesn't hit the same spot, the damage it ends up doing is superficial.
Lasers are the most accurate and fast weapon by far, but they do have their problems.
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I always wonder why you don't make the same arguments against other weapons.
If an enemy ship can move fast enough so that lasers have difficulty handling aiming, what does that say about other weapons whose ammunitions travel at sub-light speeds? :P
Because other weapons don't have to keep hitting the same spot? That is a big problem, regardles of what Batutta is telling you. Depending on speed, the ship can move hunderds of meters in the space of a second.
A missile or mass driver has to hit it..anywhere..once. If the laser doesn't hit the same spot, the damage it ends up doing is superficial.
Lasers are the most accurate and fast weapon by far, but they do have their problems.
But again, hitting something with a laser continuously is far, far easier than hitting something with a projectile. It's on such a different scale of difficulty that it's almost funny.
Also, the laser has to hit overall the same spot to drill into the armor, no one said it has to be the exact same spot every time. Using an analogy, take a block of snow or foam and then try hitting it with a water gun. While to drill deep you have to hit the same spot a couple of times, even if your aim is not perfect, you will in time reach the bottom. And this is using comparatively piss-poor aim, instead of having a computer do a instant by instant correction. This assuming we are even talking about a continuous wave laser, which frankly seems odd when taking into account some of the advantages of pulsed lasers.
With the problems you are posing a laser, a projectile would never even come close to hit it. Missiles are another matter entirely.
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I always wonder why you don't make the same arguments against other weapons.
If an enemy ship can move fast enough so that lasers have difficulty handling aiming, what does that say about other weapons whose ammunitions travel at sub-light speeds? :P
Because other weapons don't have to keep hitting the same spot? That is a big problem, regardles of what Batutta is telling you. Depending on speed, the ship can move hunderds of meters in the space of a second.
A missile or mass driver has to hit it..anywhere..once. If the laser doesn't hit the same spot, the damage it ends up doing is superficial.
Lasers are the most accurate and fast weapon by far, but they do have their problems.
They certainly do have problems. But as Ghostavo already said, tracking a distant target (5000 kilometers) means you barely have to move the laser at all. It's no more difficult than aiming a gun - far less so, in fact.
In any situation where the laser is going to have trouble hitting, the KEW will have an even harder time, unless it is an ideal contact ellipse weapon like a shrapnel warhead.
Pulsed lasers make the situation even easier.
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I've yet to do more research into ECM. Perhaps Herra could enlighten us?
If the sort of ECM as we're familiar with turns out to be implausible for most purposes... perhaps this might work:
A given physical weapon system must close to close range to inflict damage, whether by direct impact or by exploding (at a comparatively short distance) in such a way that a cone of shrapnel is directed towards the target. The problem is the physical weapon system, given that it can be detected by normal mechanisms, must overcome point defense weapons.
Lasers are inherently hard to avoid, and once fired, will probably never miss. Projectile weapons are slower, but will move at tremendous sub-light speeds and bear a massive amount of kinetic energy. However, these systems, like all systems, will have some limiting factor somewhere. A laser turret must move on a mount, which is directed by the fire control system. There will be a delay in the interfacing of these devices, however minimal. Feedback from fire control and the sensor systems will also be a part of this delay.
Thus speed is a tremendous factor for any weapon system or ship (if applicable) approaching an enemy target. Because speed... in referencing acceleration... is of such importance so as to gain any possible lead over the enemy fire control, the mass and armor of an attacking physical system will likely be compromised so as to maximize maneuverability and mobility. This however, is not enough.
As ECM of any form has not been validated so far, a means of spoofing sensors must be arrived at. Thus we arrive at an old approach: chaff. The weapon system will have affixed to it multiple chaff cartridges. When appropriate, the cartridges will fire. At some distance from the weapon, they will burst... simultaneously igniting a slow, hot-burning self-oxidized flare. Onboard the system, once terminal guidance has been determined, a generator will radiate a field in the relative area of the chaff, augmenting the sensor distorsion already imposed upon the target's fire control systems. The enemy's sensors must now deal with a cloud of ever-expanding, radiant emissions and heat. This approach may not fool all sensors, but it gives the weapons, especially if in groups, a better chance of successfully engaging the adversary.
Sounds almost credible.
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Could work. I personally think that ECM in space is cool, as are countermeasures and flares and stuff, and if it's cool, roll with it.
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In any situation where the laser is going to have trouble hitting, the KEW will have an even harder time, unless it is an ideal contact ellipse weapon like a shrapnel warhead.
Not even that. You just have to basically fill the titular ellipse, which represents from your opponent's manuvering options from your perspective, with enough shots that he has to run into one or more of them.
Honestly this applies to any form of weapon when you start dealing with light lag. 1 lightsecond is not the max range at which combat is possible for this very reason.
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Yeah, I mentioned that earlier. You just need to put enough crap in the ellipse of all their possible vectors that they hit something.
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Space-flack with a shaped-charge via mass driver. Projectile is launched... at some distance as determined by friendly fire control, a shaped charge will break apart the frangible projectile into a predictable "cone of destruction." This point in the detonation will be within a desired tolerance range so at least some of the high-velocity mass will impact along any possible flight path the target might take.
...Secondary detonation mode for this weapon includes exploding after the target has been hit by a full, non-detonated round. ;7
You just have to wonder about the long-term consequences of space battles... several hundred... thousand years afterwards, Blibjoe is standing in his/its back yard when he/it splattered into tiny bits when a missed sabot-round from a railgun traveling at sever million miles-peh-hour lands point-down on top of him... or it.
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Space-flack with a shaped-charge via mass driver. Projectile is launched... at some distance as determined by friendly fire control, a shaped charge will break apart the frangible projectile into a predictable "cone of destruction." This point in the detonation will be within a desired tolerance range so at least some of the high-velocity mass will impact along any possible flight path the target might take.
...Secondary detonation mode for this weapon includes exploding after the target has been hit by a full, non-detonated round. ;7
You just have to wonder about the long-term consequences of space battles... several hundred... thousand years afterwards, Blibjoe is standing in his/its back yard when he/it splattered into tiny bits when a missed sabot-round from a railgun traveling at sever million miles-peh-hour lands point-down on top of him... or it.
which is why yuo have to hope that some sort of geneva convention dictated that spaceships must use photonics-based weaponry.
or particle-resistant 'sheilds' are developed on planetary scale.
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though your sabot would probably burn up in a planetary atmosphere now the question is what happens the the thin hulled colony ship that gets hit by those same sabot shells
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According to the Warhammer 40K quotes in the rulebook:
"There is no arguing with the barrel of a gun."
According to me:
"There is no arguing with a tungsten-jacketed, depleted uranium-cored sabot round!"
:headz:
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This is why I postulate above a certain calibur railguns/other KEWs will have a bursting charge. Not for damage, but so they don't pose a threat to ground-based objects.
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According to the Warhammer 40K quotes in the rulebook:
"There is no arguing with the barrel of a gun."
According to me:
"There is no arguing with a tungsten-jacketed, depleted uranium-cored sabot round!"
:headz:
that will be old tech by then it will be some exotic crystal or alloy that cant be created now
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though your sabot would probably burn up in a planetary atmosphere now the question is what happens the the thin hulled colony ship that gets hit by those same sabot shells
And even more worrifying, what happens to the blibjoe when the remains of that thin hulled colony ship drop on him at his backyard?
Besides why the usage of chaff in space combat was brought up only now? Just add separated ECM decoys for that matter.
By the way, mass-driver type weapons have one kind of advantage: they don't necessarily require direct line of sight. Actually lasers could follow curved trajectories at the proximity of massive celestial body, but you can guess which curved trajectory is easier to achieve.
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We've been discussing ECM. Das General has stated that ECM... as we currently employ it... might not be viable in a vaccum. Thus, if you create an "environment" about your weapon system (the chaff/flare field), you might achieve some success.
I'm not entirely sure why/how the "ECM won't work" thing is currently valid or worth considering, apart from the fact that General Battuta generally has very good points... I need to do some personal research. The only thing I can assume is that the emissions projected by ECM rely on the atmosphere to achieve the desired affect. In general, though, ECM is merely a means of disrupting/distorting a signal so as to provide an inaccurate reading to the hostile emitter. In that sense, I don't see why it wouldn't work.
...Might be time to crack out the physics book...
@ headdie:
It's a good thought, as science and engineering are always producing newer, better materials. However, both elemental tungsten/tungsten alloys are incredibly tough materials. They're used as high-end AP rounds today. Uranium is wicked-dense and is also a choice projectile because of its incredible mass. Get it going at speed... despite K=(1/2)mv^2 (only one-half mass), you've got one helluva punch (the A-10 fires depleted uranium rounds from its GAU-8 cannon). Not to mention that awesome spall upon impact...
In short, be careful of citing "unobtanium" without just cause. :D
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One second is barely anything in space warfare, where you'll know the enemy's precise vector minutes or hours in advance. And keeping the laser on the target is a trivial challenge compared to intercepting it with a KEW. Remember, the laser moves at lightspeed.
Just curious, what would you do with a laser if I have rotating armor plates?
If it takes ~2s for a full rotation, not only will it be hard to determine the exact amount of rotation, hitting the same spot for longer than 1s will be completely impossible. Even times less then 1s will be ineffective, as you won't be able to get a 90° hit on the armor at the same spot after fractions of a second.
[edit]
I tried to calculate the effective sensor range, using the hubble space telescops resolution.
Result: After ~85 million km distance you got an error of ~100m.
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On lasers:
One meter of armor of ANY kind, even polystyrene, is a crap-ton of armor, but it also weighs a hell of a lot. It would probably account for more weight than the propellant. And, frankly, a laser can be defeated by any decent hull refrigeration system, which deep space craft are likely to have to combat solo-side heating issues. Yes, the coolant is going to have a maximum saturation before it won't absorb any more heat and the dissipation system on the far side of the ship will have a maximum rate as well, but a refrigerated, reflective surface goes a hell of a long way toward defeating a laser based weapon system.
Practically speaking, with the exception possible planetary warfare(battle directly between two planets where the planet itself is the target), most space battles are going to be at the so-called "knife fight" ranges outlined above. Simply because the further you get from your target the less accurate ANY weapon gets.
Also, practically speaking, it would be much easier to kill the crew of an opposing ship than to actually destroy the ship.
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One second is barely anything in space warfare, where you'll know the enemy's precise vector minutes or hours in advance. And keeping the laser on the target is a trivial challenge compared to intercepting it with a KEW. Remember, the laser moves at lightspeed.
Just curious, what would you do with a laser if I have rotating armor plates?
If it takes ~2s for a full rotation, not only will it be hard to determine the exact amount of rotation, hitting the same spot for longer than 1s will be completely impossible. Even times less then 1s will be ineffective, as you won't be able to get a 90° hit on the armor at the same spot after fractions of a second.
[edit]
I tried to calculate the effective sensor range, using the hubble space telescops resolution.
Result: After ~85 million km distance you got an error of ~100m.
Rotation is probably a great idea. However, it works against you just as much as it works for you, doesn't it?
However, it's a great anti-laser defense, and in SDI projections, it about triples the amount of beam energy required to kill the target.
On lasers:
One meter of armor of ANY kind, even polystyrene, is a crap-ton of armor, but it also weighs a hell of a lot. It would probably account for more weight than the propellant.
The one-meter figure is indeed a crapton of armor, more than is remotely practical. It was cited to show how powerful laser weapons can be. Please make sure you read and understand posts before replying.
And, frankly, a laser can be defeated by any decent hull refrigeration system, which deep space craft are likely to have to combat solo-side heating issues. Yes, the coolant is going to have a maximum saturation before it won't absorb any more heat and the dissipation system on the far side of the ship will have a maximum rate as well, but a refrigerated, reflective surface goes a hell of a long way toward defeating a laser based weapon system.
No, it doesn't. Reflective surfaces are not an effective defense against lasers, because no mirror is 100 percent efficient and the leakage will annihilate the mirror almost immediately. In fact, laser systems often contain mirrors, which must be specially designed so that the laser beam will not melt them (the beam is diffuse until it is focused by a mirror.)
Lasers do not work by gradually heating the target. They work by cutting. A hull refrigeration system, presumably some kind of coolant circulating through the hull, would just reduce the hull temperature. Is ice any harder to cut than steel (or, for that matter, frozen steel vs. regular steel) when you're using a blowtorch? Same with a laser.
The difference between a normal-temperature hull and a cooled hull is not going to be more than a hundred or two hundred degrees Kelvin. The laser will heat a point target by thousands of degrees (or more?)
Unlike spinning rapidly, these aren't effective laser countermeasures (particularly the mirror!)
Practically speaking, with the exception possible planetary warfare(battle directly between two planets where the planet itself is the target), most space battles are going to be at the so-called "knife fight" ranges outlined above. Simply because the further you get from your target the less accurate ANY weapon gets.
No, completely untrue. Missiles and drone kill vehicles do not suffer such accuracy degradation, only travel time. With massive detection ranges and comparatively sluggish engines, long-range battles will probably be the order of the day.
Also, practically speaking, it would be much easier to kill the crew of an opposing ship than to actually destroy the ship.
If the ships have crews. But, yes, that's probably true.
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I think you guys need to review your laser physics. And also optics, while you are at it.
In fact, laser systems often contain mirrors, which must be specially designed so that the laser beam will not melt them (the beam is diffuse until it is focused by a mirror.)
The bolded part is false and something what you absolutely should not do.
I wonder where did you get that one metre of steel in one second number? And how was it measured?
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By the way, if rotating armored surface would be used, one would need to be very careful with associated moments of inertia. If that slab goes out of balance, it will cause consequences to the ship it is supposed to be protecting. In some cases it could be vibrations, some cases could result in support structure ripping out of the hull and when **** hits the fan the armor plate buries itself to the hull - which would probably be the most likely outcome [Mr. Murphy].
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By the way, if rotating armored surface would be used, one would need to be very careful with associated moments of inertia. If that slab goes out of balance, it will cause consequences to the ship it is supposed to be protecting. In some cases it could be vibrations, some cases could result in support structure ripping out of the hull and when **** hits the fan the armor plate buries itself to the hull - which would probably be the most likely outcome [Mr. Murphy].
The ship itself can rotate on its axis. A centrifuge-based armor system is a really bad idea.
I think you guys need to review your laser physics. And also optics, while you are at it.
In fact, laser systems often contain mirrors, which must be specially designed so that the laser beam will not melt them (the beam is diffuse until it is focused by a mirror.)
The bolded part is false and something what you absolutely should not do.
I wonder where did you get that one metre of steel in one second number? And how was it measured?
Take the problem here. (http://panoptesv.com/SciFi/Focus.html) I'd be happy to hear a more thorough explanation of the issue if you're so inclined, but the use of mirrors to focus diffuse laser beams onto a point is commonly brought up in respectable and accredited engineering discussions.
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I always wonder why you don't make the same arguments against other weapons.
If an enemy ship can move fast enough so that lasers have difficulty handling aiming, what does that say about other weapons whose ammunitions travel at sub-light speeds? :P
Because other weapons don't have to keep hitting the same spot? That is a big problem, regardles of what Batutta is telling you. Depending on speed, the ship can move hunderds of meters in the space of a second.
A missile or mass driver has to hit it..anywhere..once. If the laser doesn't hit the same spot, the damage it ends up doing is superficial.
Lasers are the most accurate and fast weapon by far, but they do have their problems.
"Lasers are drills" - this is a good but farcical allegory.
Actually lasers are really tight and powerful lamps. It's funny that with proper modification for instance it's really easy to permanently blind most sensors with a laser. Just spread it out, and the sensors own lenses and focus mechanism will fry them.
Tighten the beam and first you get a mediocre remote heater. Even in this phase it can cook-off ammunition or disrupt electronics.
...tighten it more and you get your drill.
However it doesn't end there. Increase the energy concentration by upping the power of the laser and increase the focus and the laser no longer acts like a drill. Instead slowly melting and vaporizing the target it will vaporise it explosively like a gun.
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Which is actually an issue since the vapor can impede the beam. Thus the pulse laser.
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Take the problem here. I'd be happy to hear a more thorough explanation of the issue if you're so inclined, but the use of mirrors to focus diffuse laser beams onto a point is commonly brought up in respectable and accredited engineering discussions.
From the context I know what is meant in that web page. However, diffuse is completely - it actually means the opposite of what is discussed in that page - wrong word to use in that context. It doesn't mean what the author thinks it means.
The correct term is collimated, and should be known by anyone who has done a little bit of work in the field of optics.
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That's fine, and a fair point.