Graser replacement

Lord Skimper wrote:Also couldn't the wedge just spit the projectile out at near light speed? Plus the build up would be, for a SD 280+km.

In theory, yes. In practice, no. If they could do that, they could launch missiles at enormously greater velocities than they do.

Also it depends how fast the enemy ship is going, if they are going 0.3c and you are going 0.2c you only need 0.5c any more wouldn't make any difference. Can't go faster than 1c.

That's not the way addition of velocities work in relativity. However, you are correct that if two ships are moving at high velocity toward each other, you won't need as much additional velocity. On the other hand, if the two ships are moving that fast toward each other, their combined motions mean that grasers will effectively be even more powerful. It will appear to the target ship that the beam is considerably more energetic.

Didn't consider sidewalls. Do ships flying into a system jig and jog or just fly in throat wide open? Jigging and jogging would slow them down, no?

If one ship is chasing another, the lead will be firing down the throat of the tail while the tail fires up the kilt of the lead. But most battle aren't fought as a stern chase. One or both ships can jig back and forth, usually so that they can fire their broadsides rather than just their chase weapons. We saw this in the battle of Fearless vs. Sirius. The ship in the worse position will often try to keep the sidewall interposed, to prevent the unobstructed shot.

But most battles are not stern chases. Usually when ships get into missile or beam range, they will turn their broadside (or their wedge, if they have Keyhole) so that they can fire the a lot more weapons while hiding behind the passive defenses.

Is Skimper truly suggesting replacing Grasers with rail-guns?

So you fire the "solid" projectile (or some sort of nuclear weapon) and it leaves the muzzle of the gun and NEVER GOES ANY FASTER THAN THAT. It is essentially a ballistic projectile with no impeller drive (or apparently any reaction thrusters) to use for maneuvering to physically intercept its target- at some multiple millions of km away, can (and probably is) accelerating, and possibly even changing directions to improve it’s own or mess with it’s attacker’s targeting calculation.

There is a reason that snipers don’t generally shoot from a moving truck at targets in a car who are doing 50mph at an angle crosswise driving down a road full of potholes at a mile away.

If you want to swap out the Grasers on a Saganami C for rail-guns, I have a bridge in NY and some waterfront property in the Everglades I’d like to sell you.

Cash only, please.

A gigawatt laser requires one standard atomic power plant to operate.

Unless the author has forgotten to mention that his ships vaporize when they fire their energy weapons, the efficiency of the laser must be 100% for all practical purposes. Apparently you can eject heat into the wedge, and it goes away, but the heat still has to get there.

Lord Skimper wrote:The cluster warhead.

Might not this work on missiles as well?

As you all know I'm no physicist, I figured a gigawatt laser must use a lot of power, enough to power a country at current era for a while?

Given we can accelerate with a rail or guass gun a projectile to 8kms now, in 2000+ years making it go 100,000 times that shouldn't be out of the question. Just requires power.

Also couldn't the wedge just spit the projectile out at near light speed? Plus the build up would be, for a SD 280+km.

Also it depends how fast the enemy ship is going, if they are going 0.3c and you are going 0.2c you only need 0.5c any more wouldn't make any difference. Can't go faster than 1c.

Didn't consider sidewalls. Do ships flying into a system jig and jog or just fly in throat wide open? Jigging and jogging would slow them down, no?

I always read the books as having them come blazing right in.

I can see a slug that isn't right in front of a ship having an even harder time avoiding a sidewall, a slight angle off and the sidewall kills the idea. Unless you use a laser head or have this as an aft firing chase launcher, while running away. Some kind of wedge accelerated KEW launcher on a freighter might give a pirate second thoughts.

Roguevictory wrote:Also do we know how a sidewall would effect a KEW? If memory serves a sidewall involves gravitic distortions of some kind. That sounds like it would have massive negative effects on a KEW's damage potential and accuracy unless they add sidewall penetrators to every bullet.

Honor of the Queen wrote:Two of them vanished in sun-bright fireballs that shook Thunder to her keel as twin, 78-ton hammers struck her sidewall at .25 C. For all their fury, those two were harmless

Sidewalls seem to handle KEWs quite well

Jonathan_S wrote:Sidewalls seem to handle KEWs quite well

I think my signature should be: Read the first three books!

Roguevictory wrote:Also do we know how a sidewall would effect a KEW? If memory serves a sidewall involves gravitic distortions of some kind. That sounds like it would have massive negative effects on a KEW's damage potential and accuracy unless they add sidewall penetrators to every bullet.

This is explained somewhere, NOTHING physical can cross a side wall, the pen aids mentioned for contact nukes involve opening a window in the sidewall to allow it to pass through

Skimper's idea is not absurd given the established technology of the Honorverse.

In SVW, where Weber introduces the missile pod and AAEs where zweber elaborates on the idea, he unequivacly states that the launching tubes impart a significant initial launch velocity. By significant, I mean significant compared to a missile that accelerates at 10,000s of gees for hundreds of seconds.

I can not remember the exact numbers. However; if the initial velocity imparted by the missile tube is equal to the Delta Vee from only 10 seconds of drive time, then launch velocity is somewhere on the order of 1eex7 m/s.

Given a launch tube length of 20 meters, then accelleration is given by

g = V^2 / 2x

g = 2.5eex12 meters per second squared.

Seems ridiculous until you consider that a typical hunting rifle accelerates a fragile, lead and copper projectile to 1 km/s over a distance of 1/2 meters.

g = 1eex6 m/s^2

Other Honorverse technologies support Skimper's idea.

Weber's fusion bottles using gravity containment effectively create a gravity well that prevents fusion reaction products which have an average initial velocity of 1/10 Cee from escaping. Weber has this technology shrunk down to fusion bottles that can fit inside a Mk -16 missile which is only 2 meters in diameter.

Assuming that a gravity launcher for a complex projectile rather than a mere plasma can impart only 1/100 of the accelleration, then the Delta Vee over one meter would be "only" 1/100 Cee.

The velocity of a gravity launcher would scale with the square root of launcher length.

A launcher aligned along the long axis of a ship would be abount 1 kilometer long and muzzle velocity would be about 1/3 Cee.

Assume that this projectile has a robust, unitary laser head, some sensor capability and guidance, it could engage a target from a stand off distance of perhaps 10,000 kilometers.

Assuming that the targeted ship is taking evasive action at 500 gees, then the projectile could engage successfully after a flight time of about one minute.

60 second flight time multiplied by 1/3 Cee equals 20 light seconds range.

6 million kilometers is not impressive by MDM standards, but it might have interesting tactical implications.

One gigawatt is considerably less than is needed to power a county.

A typical home has a 200 Amp service panel at 120 Volts allowing a maximum power consumption of about 20 kilowatts. Average is more on the order of 5 kilowatts.

A one Gigawatt power plant is about the industry standard for nuclear as well as coal and combined cycle gas fired power plants. They will power about 250,000 homes or may be a dozen of Google's server hubs.

Weber has given enough hints regarding fuel mass and endurance to suggest that power production on a ship is measured in 1eex15 Watts or millions of Gigawatts.

The ships have shit loads of power.

Grasers seem to store power in on mount capacitors to release it in brief pulse at power levels vastly exceeding the ship's average power production. Call it 1eex18 Watts or a billion Gigawatts.

Skimper's slug launcher is well within the energy budget of a starship.

I seem to recall that SLN ships in the reserve have "particle cannon" which are less effective than PDLCs. However; a particle cannon that launches bigger particles that include bomb pumped X-Ray lasers might be better.

Lord Skimper wrote:The cluster warhead.

Might not this work on missiles as well?

As you all know I'm no physicist, I figured a gigawatt laser must use a lot of power, enough to power a country at current era for a while?

Given we can accelerate with a rail or guass gun a projectile to 8kms now, in 2000+ years making it go 100,000 times that shouldn't be out of the question. Just requires power.

Also couldn't the wedge just spit the projectile out at near light speed? Plus the build up would be, for a SD 280+km.

Also it depends how fast the enemy ship is going, if they are going 0.3c and you are going 0.2c you only need 0.5c any more wouldn't make any difference. Can't go faster than 1c.

Didn't consider sidewalls. Do ships flying into a system jig and jog or just fly in throat wide open? Jigging and jogging would slow them down, no?

I always read the books as having them come blazing right in.

I can see a slug that isn't right in front of a ship having an even harder time avoiding a sidewall, a slight angle off and the sidewall kills the idea. Unless you use a laser head or have this as an aft firing chase launcher, while running away. Some kind of wedge accelerated KEW launcher on a freighter might give a pirate second thoughts.

namelessfly wrote:I seem to recall that SLN ships in the reserve have "particle cannon" which are less effective than PDLCs. However; a particle cannon that launches bigger particles that include bomb pumped X-Ray lasers might be better.

They're described as "autocannon," which is a term in current use for weapons that fire a variety of shells, such as armor-piercing, fragmentary, explosive etc., at a high rate of fire, sometimes up to 10,000 rounds per minute. They're distinguished from machine guns in that the latter only fire solid slugs. Autocannon also generally fire larger shells.

I don't remember anything about what kind of shell SLN autocannon fire, but I would imagine that they're intended to be kinetic energy weapons - get a hit on an incoming contact nuke warhead, and it's basically scrap metal, possibly an expanding ball of heavily ionized metallic gas.

Anything that could mount a "bomb pumped x-ray laser" is basically a missile warhead without the drive section. The books have been pretty consistent in suggesting that a missile that can't maneuver isn't very useful.

namelessfly wrote:Assume that this projectile has a robust, unitary laser head, some sensor capability and guidance, it could engage a target from a stand off distance of perhaps 10,000 kilometers.

That would be some advancement in robustity! Consider that what limits a missile's acceleration is basically how robust the drive, warhead, pen-aids and guidance packages; and that with the advantage of the drive's "compensator effect."

You're essentially suggesting launching the same missile warhead without the guidance, pen-aids and drive packages at accelerations higher than missiles can manage -- when theoretically can accelerate to light-speed instantly; IOW a theoretical acceleration rate of infinity.

If you can build a warhead robust enough to withstand the accelerations cited in this thread, why not mount the warhead on a missile with equally robust guidance and pen-aids and accelerate at that rate over a few thousand kilometers rather than mere tens of meters?