[headdie]

damn it. why do all the good topics poke up when im off the grid?

three words:

Nuclear Gatling Gun

That could mean:

• Gatling gun that fires nuke-tipped bullets propelled by a chemical propellant
• Gatling gun that fires nuke-tipped bullets propelled by magnetic force (Gauss/Coil or Rail)
• Beam Gatling gun that fires particle beams made by micro-nuke explosions

or knowing Nuke a Gatling gun that fire nuke tipped shells using nukes for propellant

[Nuke]

1. that was what i originally meant (before i edited the thread to imply #2)
2. railguns operate by lorentz force where as coilguns use magnetics, get it right people. nuke tips were definatly the plan though.

3. no point in doing a gatling configuration for a beam weapon. the whole point of the gatling arrangement is to do a few things. the first of which is to spread the heat to multiple barrels, meaning you can fire longer bursts before overheating. the second thing is to ease the process of loading ammunition and removal of spent casings, which (in addition to reduced heat buildup) reduces jamming issues greatly (especially when using a linkless feed). the feed system is geared directly to the gun rotation, so if its spinning its firing. most video games get this completely wrong. they dont spin up and then start feeding ammo that would increase mechanical complexity and increase the potential for jamming.

there is no point in having a gatling assembly for an energy weapon at all. you can have multiple emitters in a chain fire setup to maximize heat dissipation. there is no ammo or feeding problems to worry about, so theres no need for a rotating barrel assembly. id even say gatling guns will at some point be rendered obsolete by using arrays of electronically controlled tandem ceaseless ammunition. prototypes are capable of fire rates over a million rounds per minute.  a hundred times faster than the fastest gatling gun. they have a much wider profile than a gatling gun so i doubt the configuration would be suitable for aircraft usage, but its well suited to land, naval, and especially space applications, though more barrels means higher gun mass, and its ammo requirements would be astronomical, so gatling guns may prove to be a better solution for all vessels but heavy warships.

[Nuke]

as for all the space stealth nonsence.

1. first of all space is nor empty, its full of the interstellar medium. its not all that much but its there. you would have to match the appearance of this medium to achieve any hope at stealthiness.
2. if you could create a perfect black body, you could still use starfield interference as a means of detection. if starts that are supposed to be there arent, you could detect an object there, and even possibly determine range with multiple scans from different positions.
3. it would be very difficult to make active camoflauge work as well. it is very unlikely that you could create active camo capable of outputting the complete spectra that can be observed in the universe.
4. even if you could accomplish 3, you still wouldn't be able to fake the parallax. if a ship is moving and takes 2 scans a minute, for example, it would only take 2 scan passes to notice that the objects in that part of the starfield are at the wrong distance than they should be.

[z64555]

there is no point in having a gatling assembly for an energy weapon at all. you can have multiple emitters in a chain fire setup to maximize heat dissipation.

Beam weaponry may actually require more than just energy to create the beam in the first place. An idea that I've been playing with is that a beam could be created from a fissile material that's slowly evaporated in the barrel and chamber, which would more or less mean that a galting configuration of a beam weapon would make sense if the material/plasma core was in small portions and therefore created a "short" beam unpon firing. The FSO type beams, being continous, would make a gatling configuration quite pointless.

EMW weaponry (lasers, masers, xasers, etc.), however, would be very pointless if put in a gatling configuration.

[Nuke]

there is no point in having a gatling assembly for an energy weapon at all. you can have multiple emitters in a chain fire setup to maximize heat dissipation.

Beam weaponry may actually require more than just energy to create the beam in the first place. An idea that I've been playing with is that a beam could be created from a fissile material that's slowly evaporated in the barrel and chamber, which would more or less mean that a galting configuration of a beam weapon would make sense if the material/plasma core was in small portions and therefore created a "short" beam unpon firing. The FSO type beams, being continous, would make a gatling configuration quite pointless.

EMW weaponry (lasers, masers, xasers, etc.), however, would be very pointless if put in a gatling configuration.

our current weapons grade lasers are mostly chemical based. their equivalent feed systems would be tank and valve fed, so would reduce the need for complex machinery to drive them. thats just based on my understanding of current technologies though. ive always had a perception where by sci-fi writers grossly underestimate the capabilities of real modern weapons technology. i tend to avoid treading into technobabble in this kind of discussion, since im more instrested in what we can do than what we might be able to do in the future.

however if an energy weapon required a physical cartridge to be loaded in order to fire, then the gatling arrangement facilitates that loading process. i can imagine a lot of fusion based energy weapons that need to load an amount of fuel, say a frozen deuterium target (something used a lot in icf research), to provide the energy neccisary to pump a laser or other energy weapon. i once read about project marauder, a military project to develop a ppc like weapon which would fire a toroid of plasma which would be magnetically projected and would provide its own containment. of course they had containment issues and the project was canceled. it would have had a strong emp effect on its target as well as some thermal and explosive properties as well. i believe this kind of weapon would use a confinement target, though the project is highly classified so idk.

[Al-Rik]

3. no point in doing a gatling configuration for a beam weapon. the whole point of the gatling arrangement is to do a few things.

Rule 1: Gatling Guns are always better than ordinary guns.

It's the same principle that indicates that a red car is faster

[Alex Heartnet]

Um... you'll still ultimately have to radiate the heat away as far as spaceships are concerned. You'll never be able to perfectly insulate your hot reservoir/heatsink, so eventually the heat in it will leak back into parts of your ship you're trying to cool, or the thing will just melt.

By then you can just swap out your heat sinks for fresh ones.  Carrying a few spare heatsinks in your cargohold is no different then carrying other spare supplies (jettison the used ones if you have to).  And if your ship isn't equipped to swap out heat sinks on its own, then the nearest spaceport is.

[Nuke]

it would be better just to mount all the heat sinks (i prefer the term radiators, because its the term nasa uses, and it more specifically defines the operation of the device), so you can get maximum heat dissipation. weapon systems create heat, there is no way around it.

[Mikes]

I believe the thread is now ready to enter the "Sharks... with frigging lazer beams!" stage.

P.S.: The sharks would require metallic neck collars to allow rail gun assisted shark launching in space.

P.P.S.: The lazers are required to penetrate the shields and hull and allow the shark to get inside the enemy craft.

P.P.P.S.: Here is a proof of concept picture: http://blogs.westword.com/showandtell/shark-with-lazors-550.jpg

[Alex Heartnet]

How will the shark survive getting hit with point defense weapons?  The logical thing to do when one sees a shark incoming would be to shoot it full of hot lead and plasma.  Anything that could protect your shark from such would probably also be able to protect my ship from your shark.

[Ghostavo]

Um... you'll still ultimately have to radiate the heat away as far as spaceships are concerned. You'll never be able to perfectly insulate your hot reservoir/heatsink, so eventually the heat in it will leak back into parts of your ship you're trying to cool, or the thing will just melt.

By then you can just swap out your heat sinks for fresh ones.  Carrying a few spare heatsinks in your cargohold is no different then carrying other spare supplies (jettison the used ones if you have to).  And if your ship isn't equipped to swap out heat sinks on its own, then the nearest spaceport is.

Swapping heat sinks if possible wouldn't solve the problem. And jettisoning used heatsinks would be like launching a giant beacon saying "We're here!"

[Alex Heartnet]

Swapping heat sinks if possible wouldn't solve the problem. And jettisoning used heatsinks would be like launching a giant beacon saying "We're here!"

Well, would you rather be cooked alive in your own ship?  If you are jettisoning heat sinks, that means you have reached the limits of your stealth attempt and have to face death by laser cannon in order to avoid a more certain death by being cooked alive.

[jr2]

Encapsulate it in something with very very low heat transfer rate.  May delay them detecting the jettison, IDK.

[Klaustrophobia]

heat sinks don't work like mass effect 2 guys.  they aren't consumables.  they are devices to aid in the dissipation/removal of heat, not absorb and store it. 

[z64555]

heat sinks don't work like mass effect 2 guys.  they aren't consumables.  they are devices to aid in the dissipation/removal of heat, not absorb and store it.

There's a confusion somewhere between "heat sinks," "radiators," and "heat reservoirs."

[jr2]

Yeah, but everyone (I assume) knows the difference, we're just abusing the terminology. xD

[Nuke]

really you can drop the whole stealth in space thing. unless you do something rather drastic like rip a whole in the universe or go into subspace or whatever (thus entering into the realm of technobabble). even with very good heat storage/dissipation/transfer technologies available you still could not achieve stealth. so im posting this again, since you all just ignored it.

as for all the space stealth nonsence.

1. first of all space is nor empty, its full of the interstellar medium. its not all that much but its there. you would have to match the appearance of this medium to achieve any hope at stealthiness.
2. if you could create a perfect black body, you could still use starfield interference as a means of detection. if starts that are supposed to be there arent, you could detect an object there, and even possibly determine range with multiple scans from different positions.
3. it would be very difficult to make active camoflauge work as well. it is very unlikely that you could create active camo capable of outputting the complete spectra that can be observed in the universe.
4. even if you could accomplish 3, you still wouldn't be able to fake the parallax. if a ship is moving and takes 2 scans a minute, for example, it would only take 2 scan passes to notice that the objects in that part of the starfield are at the wrong distance than they should be.

[Alex Heartnet]

Stealth in space would rely on your enemy thinking that you aren't stupid enough to actually try it.  In other words, it is a risky suicidal tactic that will never work once, unless you are the story's main character, in which case you can forget about trying it a second time.  Of course, giving the intelligence level of certain types of evil minions...

But again, it bears repeating that a missile won't be as smart as a starship sensor array without driving up the cost of the missile by a massive amount.

[An4ximandros]

I am going to post this again:

"Nicoll's Law:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that any thread that begins by pointing out why stealth in space is impossible will rapidly turn into a thread focusing on schemes whereby stealth in space might be achieved."

No one will stop coming with a magical way to have spacetealth, it's about as prevalent as comparing X to Nazis/Hitler.

[Nuke]

you might be able to use tactics to fool sensor arrays and avoid detection. you could probibly hide in dark spots and stuff like that, but its hard to do when both objects are moving and even harder if there are multiple scanners looking at you from different positions and velocities. but in open space (which most of it is), there is no one magic bullet to prevent you from being seen.

as for missiles, it is likely they would receive sensor data from the ship that fired it. you could try jamming the signal (though this will make your ship look much brighter on the scopes). it would have its own sensors locked onto its target as well as information about where its going. this of course enters into the realm of electronic warfare.