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future human vs others space combat.

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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Lord Skimper   » Fri Jun 06, 2014 1:49 pm

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Good thing is that bullets work good in space. Sights would need be adjusted/adjustable and cannon / gun convergence adjusted. Not sure if rifling would help? No loss of range or muzzle energy in space. Tracer rounds would have to be reworked.
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by viciokie   » Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:33 pm

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Lord Skimper wrote:Good thing is that bullets work good in space. Sights would need be adjusted/adjustable and cannon / gun convergence adjusted. Not sure if rifling would help? No loss of range or muzzle energy in space. Tracer rounds would have to be reworked.


Since the idea behind rifling is to assist in trajectory in atmosphere i doubt it would be of much use in space. In space i would suspect a tight fitting smooth-bore or even better a rail gun would be better.
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Emo Otaku   » Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:57 pm

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I thought part of the purpose of rifling is spin stabilisation

If you don't want your round to tumble then rifling is probably still a good idea.

Two of my favourite human tech (mostly) fictional ships

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Prometheus

http://www.up-ship.com/apr/michael.htm
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Thucydides   » Fri Jun 06, 2014 11:47 pm

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Might I introduce you to a website called "Rocketpunk Manefisto" http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com

The author has at least eight separate posts over the years exploring space warfare from a hard science and near term perspective. Some of the posts have received over 400 replies each, so there is a great deal of discussion that you can tap into for ideas.

In these you can see how lasers really do against projectile weapons, if the gravity gauge is really all its cracked up to be and other topics that will liven up your thinking about space warfare.
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Jun 08, 2014 4:18 pm

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Emo Otaku wrote:I thought part of the purpose of rifling is spin stabilisation

If you don't want your round to tumble then rifling is probably still a good idea.
...


Especially since the other usual forms of stabilisation doesn´t work in space.
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Thucydides   » Mon Jun 23, 2014 8:22 pm

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The real reason aliens won't be coming out to fight us:

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/what-if-the-r ... 1498217767

Attempting to destroy us with the Halting Problem attack...pshaw!
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Tenshinai   » Tue Jun 24, 2014 1:16 pm

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Thucydides wrote:The real reason aliens won't be coming out to fight us:

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/what-if-the-r ... 1498217767

Attempting to destroy us with the Halting Problem attack...pshaw!


Finally someone thinking outside the box.

As a corollary, as i´ve said many times before, development, technical and otherwise, is not linear.
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by pushmar   » Wed Jun 25, 2014 12:06 pm

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Tenshinai wrote:
MAD-4A wrote: Actually, not as such. lightning is a discharge of electrons from one atom to another. In a true vacuum there are no atoms to discharge between. It could work in a nebula or gas cloud. In true space you would need an electron particle cannon (EPC) to collect and discharge the electrons as a "beam" threw the vacuum.


Vacuum does not conduct electricity, it is however also not an absolute inhibitor of electricity.

Generate a strong enough electric field and you can get what amounts to "lightning" in space, except of course it´s electricity rather than lightning, as indeed there is no stray atoms to have their state altered by the passing current.


Might I suggest "http://electric-cosmos.org/" by Don Scott...and http://electric-cosmos.org/IEEE-TransPlasmaSci-Scott-Aug2007.pdf
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Thucydides   » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:25 am

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Taking my own advice, I reread the Space Warfare posts on Rocketpunk Manifesto, as well as the relevant passages in Atomic Rockets, and came to the conclusion that space warfare as we are shown on TV or the movies is bunk.

With current technology we can have high thrust, low efficiency drives (chemical rockets) or high efficiency, low thrust drives (like Ion drive, for example). Space war becomes a matter of slowly drifting into position to achieve a firing solution, but since weapons are not constrained by the atmosphere or gravity, they have frightening engagement ranges. Imagine you are on a large cargo barge, but only have a small outboard motor to move the barge with. Strapped to the barge is a HiMARS rocket battery and a downlink to a live UAV feed....

Getting to high efficiency and high thrust isn't going to be easy. The only current way to do this is ORION pulsed nuclear plasma drive (i.e. firing a nuke behind the ship and bouncing the resulting plasma off a huge pusher plate), although variations of this idea do exist (fusion drives using pellets of nuclear fuel imploded by lasers have a theoretical ISP of 1,000,000). These sorts of ships will be huge, and capable of mounting batteries of long range laser weapons capable of hitting targets at ranges from about 1/3 the distance from the Earth to the Moon for reasonable sized lasers to freaking monster weapons capable of scorching targets several light minutes away....

Space war is not going to be anything like we imagine.
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Re: future human vs others space combat.
Post by Roguevictory   » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:26 pm

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Lord Skimper wrote:Good thing is that bullets work good in space. Sights would need be adjusted/adjustable and cannon / gun convergence adjusted. Not sure if rifling would help? No loss of range or muzzle energy in space. Tracer rounds would have to be reworked.


But gravity would effect the projectiles so there would still be some loss of speed, and calculating long distance shots accurately might be more difficult then you think unless your targeting system knows all the gravitational influences that would affect the flight path are and can compensate for them. Not to mention at really long ranges the target would see the bullet coming and have time to evade.
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