Difference Laser/Graser

Hello. I didn't find any textev or similar about the differences of Lasers and Grasers. Sure, one work with Choherent Light ( Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) or Gamma Rays ( Gamma Ray Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), but why do you have both? Lasers seem to use less Energy, but is this really a factor in a big Vessel?

Lasers also fire a lot faster. There are targets for which superdreadnought-scale grasers are overkill. Lasers work just fine for them, and they require less power, less volume, are easier to maintain, cost less, fire faster, and do the job just fine.

Also, smaller ships simply can't fit enough grasers. If you can fit 2 grasers or 6 lasers, and the lasers are sufficient for your targets, then you go with lasers.

friessomecircuits wrote:Hello. I didn't find any textev or similar about the differences of Lasers and Grasers. Sure, one work with Choherent Light ( Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) or Gamma Rays ( Gamma Ray Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), but why do you have both? Lasers seem to use less Energy, but is this really a factor in a big Vessel?

I'll leave it to the technically-inclined folks to provide more of those types of details.

As to why ships carry both types, the lasers are usually portrayed as being weaker that the Grazers, in terms of damage done to the bad folks. I think it is either (1) Dependent on the size and space availability in the class of ship and (2) To give the ship commander a variety of options. For example, the Iowa-Class Battleship is most famous for the three 16" turrets, but it also carried (WWII) 20 5" guns, 80 4mm Bofors, and 49 20mm Oerlikon guns. All to meet different threats and project power in measured ways.

And I suspect that is the same reason in the Honorverse; to give the ship's commander options on the level of force needed/used.

I could be up the wrong tree barking on this, but that is my initial thoughts on the matter.

Is it Grazer in English? He'll, damn translation... Why do Germans have to translate everything. Was the same when I discovered that Fritz Montoya was referenced the whole time as Fritz Montaya. Need to re-read the OTs some more times.

Back to the Topic, Thanks for the answer. Yeah, but Ships have only Projectile weapons of different caliber, and as there are multiple calibers referenced, I thought that there were more differences, maybe in effect on a ship, against sidewalls or in range or firing speed("reload rate" in lack of a better word)

friessomecircuits wrote:Is it Grazer in English? He'll, damn translation... Why do Germans have to translate everything. Was the same when I discovered that Fritz Montoya was referenced the whole time as Fritz Montaya. Need to re-read the OTs some more times.

Back to the Topic, Thanks for the answer. Yeah, but Ships have only Projectile weapons of different caliber, and as there are multiple calibers referenced, I thought that there were more differences, maybe in effect on a ship, against sidewalls or in range or firing speed("reload rate" in lack of a better word)

"Graser" in English.

As for differences between lasers and grasers - besides those already mentioned, there will probably be some differences in their effects on armor. Honorverse armor is layered, with different materials affecting incoming fire in different ways, and having different types of energy weapons can more effectively get through some bits of armor but not others.

Technically, there are three types of energy weapons: Lasers, grasers, and the x-ray lasers that are emitted from a missile's laserheads (not sure if the shipboard lasers are also x-ray lasers). With different wavelength energy weapons, something is sure to get through at some point. If *all* energy weapons were the same in the Honorverse, it would be fairly simple to armor against them, although it wouldn't be perfect, as it's the impact energy that causes the damage.

friessomecircuits wrote:Hello. I didn't find any textev or similar about the differences of Lasers and Grasers. Sure, one work with Choherent Light ( Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) or Gamma Rays ( Gamma Ray Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), but why do you have both? Lasers seem to use less Energy, but is this really a factor in a big Vessel?

In addition to what others have said, prior to the last few generations of Manty sensors, it was difficult to see exactly where a target ship was. One job of sidewalls and wedges is to obscure the exact point the ships is inside them. you can guess from the position of the wedge, but there is a loose relationship between the 2 so it is impossible to see exactly where the ship is, and the obscured volume is multiple times the size of the target ship.

So you needed to bracket the volume with multiple shots to get a probability of a single it. So, historically, the more "OK" weapons, which could fire more, the better. The Graysons realized that modern Manty sensors could give a high hit potential, and switched to the all Graser armament, simplfying the armament and guaranteeing that any shot which hit would inflict serious damage.

This is historically the shift to all big gun armament done in the Dreadnaught revolution - Previous ships could hold 3-5 different calibers of anti-ship guns, while Dreadnaughts use only 2 very different calibers.

MaxxQ wrote:
Technically, there are three types of energy weapons: Lasers, grasers, and the x-ray lasers that are emitted from a missile's laserheads (not sure if the shipboard lasers are also x-ray lasers). With different wavelength energy weapons, something is sure to get through at some point. If *all* energy weapons were the same in the Honorverse, it would be fairly simple to armor against them, although it wouldn't be perfect, as it's the impact energy that causes the damage.

The lasers on ships probably aren't x-ray weapons because x-ray lasers are depicted as requiring a nuclear detonation to generate them So I believe that the only way the shipborne lasers could be x-ray lasers is if they were detonating a nuke on board the ship than channeling the x-rays out the gunports every time they fired and I doubt that the navies in Honorverse are crazy enough to do that regularly.

Roguevictory wrote:The lasers on ships probably aren't x-ray weapons because x-ray lasers are depicted as requiring a nuclear detonation to generate them So I believe that the only way the shipborne lasers could be x-ray lasers is if they were detonating a nuke on board the ship than channeling the x-rays out the gunports every time they fired and I doubt that the navies in Honorverse are crazy enough to do that regularly.

Nope.

An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design
...
"Early space energy weapons used photons in the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and even the radio range. These wavelengths are impractical to focus at contemporary combat ranges so modern weapons use shorter wavelength photons in the X-ray to gamma ray range. Indeed, modern space weapon lasers are so commonly X-ray lasers that the term “laser” is generally synonymous with “xraser” in naval parlance. Their rarer gamma emitting cousins are called “grasers.”"

Theemile wrote:

friessomecircuits wrote:Hello. I didn't find any textev or similar about the differences of Lasers and Grasers. Sure, one work with Choherent Light ( Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) or Gamma Rays ( Gamma Ray Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), but why do you have both? Lasers seem to use less Energy, but is this really a factor in a big Vessel?

In addition to what others have said, prior to the last few generations of Manty sensors, it was difficult to see exactly where a target ship was. One job of sidewalls and wedges is to obscure the exact point the ships is inside them. you can guess from the position of the wedge, but there is a loose relationship between the 2 so it is impossible to see exactly where the ship is, and the obscured volume is multiple times the size of the target ship.

So you needed to bracket the volume with multiple shots to get a probability of a single it. So, historically, the more "OK" weapons, which could fire more, the better. The Graysons realized that modern Manty sensors could give a high hit potential, and switched to the all Graser armament, simplfying the armament and guaranteeing that any shot which hit would inflict serious damage.

This is historically the shift to all big gun armament done in the Dreadnaught revolution - Previous ships could hold 3-5 different calibers of anti-ship guns, while Dreadnaughts use only 2 very different calibers.

A couple of other related points:

1) In military usage (as opposed to civilian applications) in the Honorverse the term Laser actually means X-ray Laser. This applies to shipborne lasers as well as laser-head missiles.

2) It isn't just the better sensors that allow better targeting. The Graysons (with the benefit of analyzing RMN experience) realized that with the laser head missile, a targeted ship's sidewall was likely to be completely taken down by the time energy weapons could range on it (assuming the enemy ship wasn't outright destroyed or mission-killed during the missile exchange phase of battle, as became increasingly likely as missiles became more accurate--the better sensors applied to missile seekers as well as shipborne sensors--and destructive (increasing energy throughput through better grav-lense foucusing, longer and more numerous lasing rods, and increased warhead yield) as time went on), vastly increasing the ability of the ship's sensors to determine a target's precise location. At the very least its ECM capability would be very degraded, (ECM emitters are among the portions of the ship that cannot be armored), and its sidewall strength would be down, reducing the enemy ship's ability to confuse the sensors attempting to determine the target's actual location.

In the pre-laser-head era (nukes used in either sidewall burning mode or contact boom mode) of naval combat, this wasn't true. A target would more likely than not still have its sidewall and an ECM capability that remained significant by the time a ship could bring it into energy range.

Accordingly, the GSN (and later the RMN) optimized their heavier ship's designs (heavy cruisers and above) for laser-head missile combat, backed by fewer but heavier energy weapons (grasers of a size larger than historically carried by a particular class instead of lasers, i.e., the GSN Jason Alvarez class heavy cruiser carried grasers that under the old design paradigm were carried by battlecruisers).

The idea was to increase missile tube numbers and magazine depth at the expense of the lighter energy weapons so if a target was still able to fight when it reached energy range (assuming it hadn't surrendered), it wouldn't have a sidewall (effectively doubling energy range for the attacker), its ECM would be ineffective, and it would then be hit by accurate energy fire that was immediately decisive (target destroyed or mission-killed in one salvo).

kzt wrote:

Roguevictory wrote:The lasers on ships probably aren't x-ray weapons because x-ray lasers are depicted as requiring a nuclear detonation to generate them So I believe that the only way the shipborne lasers could be x-ray lasers is if they were detonating a nuke on board the ship than channeling the x-rays out the gunports every time they fired and I doubt that the navies in Honorverse are crazy enough to do that regularly.

Nope.

An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design
...
"Early space energy weapons used photons in the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and even the radio range. These wavelengths are impractical to focus at contemporary combat ranges so modern weapons use shorter wavelength photons in the X-ray to gamma ray range. Indeed, modern space weapon lasers are so commonly X-ray lasers that the term “laser” is generally synonymous with “xraser” in naval parlance. Their rarer gamma emitting cousins are called “grasers.”"

Interesting.