Space Combat Techniques Discussion

[T.Neo]

Actually not - good reflective properties is more important. A transparent ablative layer that catches dirt over a polished layer would be more effective than a pure ablative armor.

I am skeptical. A good mirror can reflect a lot of light, but it cannot reflect all light. And how transparent does the dust shield remain after a long time in space? How transparent is it after being fired at several times? How reflective is the reflective coating after being covered in slag from the hald-ablated dust shield?

Also, the whipple shield principle can also apply to lasers - you could restrain an opaque aerosol cloud by a transparent layer, so it does not disperse too fast.

But, can you make the aerosol dense enough to effectively block the laser beam?

And what happens when the transparent "roof" is punctured? Is the armor arranged in redundant cells? What is the optimal size for these cells?

 

[fsci123]

- Time of flight. It takes a 3 km/s projectile around 5 minutes to cross a megameter, which gives the enemy ship ample time to dodge and/or fire countermeasures. Higher velocity means lower time of flight, but this does not come without problems.

Well asumming current technology it may take 5 minutes to prepare for a burn...

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

I am skeptical. A good mirror can reflect a lot of light, but it cannot reflect all light. And how transparent does the dust shield remain after a long time in space? How transparent is it after being fired at several times? How reflective is the reflective coating after being covered in slag from the hald-ablated dust shield?



But, can you make the aerosol dense enough to effectively block the laser beam?

And what happens when the transparent "roof" is punctured? Is the armor arranged in redundant cells? What is the optimal size for these cells?

Well, one way to counter a laser, is to have reflective armor all the way down. Once the laser burns through any part of it, it will just find more reflective armor below it.

 

[fsci123]

Well, one way to counter a laser, is to have reflective armor all the way down. Once the laser burns through any part of it, it will just find more reflective armor below it.

Nothing is truly reflective...

 

[Urwumpe]

Nothing is truly reflective...

Still, changes in optical densities always result in reflection AND refraction for all electromagnetic waves. You can cover pretty much everything less than gamma rays, and gamma ray lasers are pretty hard to make.

 

[T.Neo]

Well asumming current technology it may take 5 minutes to prepare for a burn...

Does it take 5 minutes to fire an air-to-air missile?

Well, one way to counter a laser, is to have reflective armor all the way down. Once the laser burns through any part of it, it will just find more reflective armor below it.

The problem with that is that to be reflective, you need to be smooth, and free of slag.

If I ablate just the very, very top surface of a mirror off, it already becomes relatively unreflective... you can't ablate through a layer and then expect the layer just underneath to be a highly reflective surface.

 

[Dambuster]

Does it take 5 minutes to fire an air-to-air missile?



The problem with that is that to be reflective, you need to be smooth, and free of slag.

If I ablate just the very, very top surface of a mirror off, it already becomes relatively unreflective... you can't ablate through a layer and then expect the layer just underneath to be a highly reflective surface.

Is there any material that, when ablated, could form a reflective oxide (or some layer on top)? If so, perhaps you could make a system to 'spray' oxygen on a damaged section of armour to make it reflective again...

 

[T.Neo]

How does oxygen make things reflective?

I can for example make something out of aluminium or chromium that is very un-reflective due to its surface texture... after surface ablation something is likely to have such an uneven unreflective surface.

 

[Dambuster]

How does oxygen make things reflective?

I can for example make something out of aluminium or chromium that is very un-reflective due to its surface texture... after surface ablation something is likely to have such an uneven unreflective surface.

I was just wondering if there were any metals which have reflective oxides. But your point about the uneven surface pretty much negates that.

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

I think I found how a fairly standard fight between two large ships should be. At long range, lightseconds away, both ships will field lasers in an attempt to take out the others point defense. After closing in slightly, missiles upon missiles upon missiles will be launched to destroy the ship without point defense. If at closer ranges, machine gun and "artilley" (no arcing) fire will be the dominant thing, not Only blowing holes in hulls and whipple shields, but moving the ship too. Makes a
Possible tactic to hit a ship hard enough to force it from orbit and let it burn up and crash.

 

[Sky Captain]

I don't know if it is possible, but a material with thermal superconductivity properties should make very good anti laser armour because heat would be immediatly distributed all over the armour section and radiated into space. It would take a lot of laser energy to heat the whole armour to the point of failure. Also a very powerful lasers likely would have significant cooldown period between each firing to remove the waste heat from system which would allow the target also to cool down.

 

[Eli13]

Another problem with Lasers (at least as an offensive weapon) is that, aside from their range being limited to "knife fight" distances, they can be spoofed by diffraction. For example if a vessel were to disperse vapor around itself, if it were thick enough, it could essentially dissipate the beam to the point of uselessness. Although, they could be used quite well in a defensive role against projectile weapons (this idea is actually used in Mass Effect, the GARDIAN laser)

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/GARDIAN

Another thing with lasers, their color would have a huge impact on power also. The most powerful lasers would not be visible to the human eye.

 

[Salun]

Something comes to mind when I think space weapons and that is how difficult it would be to adapt gravity based tech such as propellant driven guns to work in space for say infantry. Because if that station has a strategic value then you may not want to just blow it up. You may want to take it. So say you have Space Marines(Cliche) trying to storm a station. Lasers are cumbersome and hard to use in space. No way to see even where your shooting. What I would do is in a nut shell is basically a mini Rail gun. Only moving part is the projective itself.

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

Something comes to mind when I think space weapons and that is how difficult it would be to adapt gravity based tech such as propellant driven guns to work in space for say infantry. Because if that station has a strategic value then you may not want to just blow it up. You may want to take it. So say you have Space Marines(Cliche) trying to storm a station. Lasers are cumbersome and hard to use in space. No way to see even where your shooting. What I would do is in a nut shell is basically a mini Rail gun. Only moving part is the projective itself.

it still moves the ship ever so slightly. Its an action-reaction gun still. Every weapon is in reality.

 

[Hielor]

Something comes to mind when I think space weapons and that is how difficult it would be to adapt gravity based tech such as propellant driven guns to work in space for say infantry. Because if that station has a strategic value then you may not want to just blow it up. You may want to take it. So say you have Space Marines(Cliche) trying to storm a station. Lasers are cumbersome and hard to use in space. No way to see even where your shooting. What I would do is in a nut shell is basically a mini Rail gun. Only moving part is the projective itself.

Why can't you see where you're shooting with lasers? You can't see bullets either...in zero-g, both lasers and projectile weapons will have a straight trajectory. That's even easier than on Earth where you have to account for the parabolic trajectory of ballistics...

Modern projectile guns don't really need gravity to work anyway. The Russians successfully tested normal ballistic weapons in space at one point...

it still moves the ship ever so slightly. Its an action-reaction gun still. Every weapon is in reality.

I don't think you actually understood what he was talking about, because he said nothing about weapons being reactionless.

 

[fsci123]

Why can't you see where you're shooting with lasers? You can't see bullets either...in zero-g, both lasers and projectile weapons will have a straight trajectory. That's even easier than on Earth where you have to account for the parabolic trajectory of ballistics...

Modern projectile guns don't really need gravity to work anyway. The Russians successfully tested normal ballistic weapons in space at one point...


I don't think you actually understood what he was talking about, because he said nothing about weapons being reactionless.

Well lasers travel in almost a straightline. Bullets orbit along with the body...

 

[Hielor]

Well lasers travel in almost a straightline. Bullets orbit along with the body...

:facepalm:

Salun was talking about "space marines storming a station." At that scale you don't have to worry about orbits.

 

[colligpip]

I have been playing about with space combat in Orbiter using existing orbiter addons. I have been using the Polyrot as a warhead and Rwarp MFD
So far i have been spawning the Polyrot next to my Delta Glider and R warping it at my target and then locking it on once out of warp its quite good fun a sort of space based guided missile. I even set one at another one as a sort of counter measure. Also had fun using the orion to knock things out of orbit.

I wish I had some sort of lasers I could fire..... if anybody has any other ways of blowing things up with existing addons let me know

I wish there was some sort of military cargo (with offensive and defensive capability) that I could load into the cargo bay of ships

 

[Urwumpe]

I think I found how a fairly standard fight between two large ships should be. At long range, lightseconds away, both ships will field lasers in an attempt to take out the others point defense. After closing in slightly, missiles upon missiles upon missiles will be launched to destroy the ship without point defense. If at closer ranges, machine gun and "artilley" (no arcing) fire will be the dominant thing, not Only blowing holes in hulls and whipple shields, but moving the ship too. Makes a
Possible tactic to hit a ship hard enough to force it from orbit and let it burn up and crash.

Sorry, but that order wouldn't work out. Missiles can be fired from much further away and it is pretty easy to just saturate point defenses. Lasers on the other hand suffer badly in terms of accuracy and damage over range. The inverse square law also applies to lasers, double the range means 1/4 the radiation flux, and also you need to point them accurately over a long range.

Missiles on the other hand can even be launched blind and become active only close to the target, pretty much like modern torpedoes from a submarine.

Also, something for you to chew on: A telescope like Hubble can only resolve features as large as 85m over a light-second away. A large multi-hundred meter spacecraft can easily be seen that way and maybe already be identified, but not every individual point defense weapon. Passively detecting a inbound missile would be pretty hard: especially if it is heading your way, it has very low angular velocity in your view relative to the background stars. Until you can see it, it has already detected and locked passively on you. Even worse, if you have a swarm of missiles using todays guidance technology, these missiles could detect you passively including a good enough range estimate to leave you only a few seconds of warning to leave EMCON and activate the point defenses.

Detection and deception is everything in space. Only because space is empty, that doesn't mean all objects are easily detected. And stuff like EMCON is still not obsolete: If you can detect something in 25,000 km distance with your spacecraft, another spacecraft can detect you passively in 50,000 km distance by your emissions.

You can be sure, unmanned spacecraft will have an very important role because of that: As mobile sensor and weapon platforms that guard the more expensive assets.

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

Sorry, but that order wouldn't work out. Missiles can be fired from much further away and it is pretty easy to just saturate point defenses. Lasers on the other hand suffer badly in terms of accuracy and damage over range. The inverse square law also applies to lasers, double the range means 1/4 the radiation flux, and also you need to point them accurately over a long range.

Missiles on the other hand can even be launched blind and become active only close to the target, pretty much like modern torpedoes from a submarine.

Also, something for you to chew on: A telescope like Hubble can only resolve features as large as 85m over a light-second away. A large multi-hundred meter spacecraft can easily be seen that way and maybe already be identified, but not every individual point defense weapon. Passively detecting a inbound missile would be pretty hard: especially if it is heading your way, it has very low angular velocity in your view relative to the background stars. Until you can see it, it has already detected and locked passively on you. Even worse, if you have a swarm of missiles using todays guidance technology, these missiles could detect you passively including a good enough range estimate to leave you only a few seconds of warning to leave EMCON and activate the point defenses.

Detection and deception is everything in space. Only because space is empty, that doesn't mean all objects are easily detected. And stuff like EMCON is still not obsolete: If you can detect something in 25,000 km distance with your spacecraft, another spacecraft can detect you passively in 50,000 km distance by your emissions.

You can be sure, unmanned spacecraft will have an very important role because of that: As mobile sensor and weapon platforms that guard the more expensive assets.

Stealth in space is very hard to even think of accomplishing. Way I see it is stealth materials, and holding in the heat. But that means the ship becomes a time bomb, heating up until the crew can take it no more. So, stealth is right outta there. Lasers would be used at long "range" because of their superior accuracy to kinetic weaponry. Hubble is an old telescope, likely better cameras will be used capable of identifying weaponry and point defense.
Essentially, to tell point defense apart from weapons, if its pointed at the missiles, its point defense. If its pointed at YOU, its a weapon. Lasers will damage those while the missiles close in, and kinetic weaponry is of course last because its the least accurate. Even with the fanning of lasers, they're still more accurate than a kinetic weapon at those ranges.