Mirror-armed missiles

Jonathan_S wrote:

Dilandu wrote:
Nothing was said about the exact wavelenght of Honorverse's lasers.

And, if I'm not mistaken, the sidewalls are at least partially transparent in several diapasons. Like visual light.

Well, not in the wiki. But it's quite often incomplete or erroneous. (It's not something David Weber provides or reviews, so it's subject to fan errors, misunderstandings, or apathy)

Here's a relivant part from the armor essay in the anthology In Fire Forged which does clarify the wavelengths.

In Fire Forged: An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design wrote:. 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.” Both of these words have their obvious origin with the ancient “laser” though the fact that many such weapons do not operate on the principle of “stimulated emission” is generally forgotten.

Basically the only thing against classic lasers stated is that these wavelengths are impractical to focus at contemporary combat ranges. Well, the main idea is to go around this problem with mirrors.

Joat42 wrote:You don't think a big honking mirror is kind of a giveaway?

And it is still a one trick pony.

Basically no. This is just a mirror. A tiny drop of matter in big wast space. No impeller wedge. Practically zero heat emission. Probably not even maneuvering thrusters - the flyweels could be used instead. If our enemy would be so stupid that he would try to hit the mirrors with his onboard weaponry... well, we of course let him do this! The mirrors are cheap and have ridiculously small mass. We could provide him with literally billions of such targets to play with, and just wait until his ship would melt because of overheating)

Dilandu wrote:Basically the only thing against classic lasers stated is that these wavelengths are impractical to focus at contemporary combat ranges. Well, the main idea is to go around this problem with mirrors.

Ah, so now it's not just a mirror equipped missile; you're also replacing at least one of the ship's main energy mounts with one that's ineffective at even normal energy ranges without these new missiles.
Seems to make it even less practical to me <shrug>


Edit: Also you should dig up and read the whole essay. It goes on to list the good effects of shorter wavelenths in terms of penetration and damage to the target. Another reason that gamma ray grasers (at around 0.1 picometers wavelenght) packs more punch a similar sized x-ray laser (at around 10 picometers wavelength). So trading off a x-ray laser for an IR or Visible light one impacts more than just focusing - an equaly focused beam of the longer wavelength is also less penetrating and destructive. (Not saying it's not destructive at all, but you're giving up a lot to gain the ability to attempt to refocus it with mid-course mirrors)

Ok, so your tiny mirror is mounted on a missile hundreds of millions of kilometers away, doing its best to pretend to be a hole in space. Then how the heck are do you plan to hit it from your ship, hundreds of millions of kilometers away? It's a non-trivial exercise to hit a missile with a point defense laser 100,000 kilometers away. You're not going to be hitting a missile pretending to not be there from orders of magnitude away.

Dilandu wrote:Basically the only thing against classic lasers stated is that these wavelengths are impractical to focus at contemporary combat ranges. Well, the main idea is to go around this problem with mirrors.

There's only so much you can "go around the problem" with energy weapons. They have a functional maximum range against any target of about 1 million km, and the second you put a sidewall on the target you drop that range in half.

The only possible way you could even possibly use these mirrors, would be some sort of "bounce shot" to try for an up the skirt, down the throat shot, which would let you avoid the sidewalls.

And even that's probably a lot more difficult than coaching an RD into the proper positioning, since a missile will no longer function for this sort of "bankshot mirror" idea. And if we're loading it onto an RD, you need:
a) fairly good stealth so it isn't torn apart by LACs (since you seemingly don't like Manticore?)
b) it's gotta be fast, most RD's prior to the Haven Wars were seemingly pretty slow
c) you gotta up the endurance like mad, another known pre-Wars RD problem
d) probably want to up the mirror lifetime to last more than one shot, cause you're probably going to be trying to bank-shot energy beams into a whole fleet not just one ship.

Dilandu wrote:

Joat42 wrote:You don't think a big honking mirror is kind of a giveaway?

And it is still a one trick pony.

Basically no. This is just a mirror. A tiny drop of matter in big wast space. No impeller wedge. Practically zero heat emission. Probably not even maneuvering thrusters - the flyweels could be used instead. If our enemy would be so stupid that he would try to hit the mirrors with his onboard weaponry... well, we of course let him do this! The mirrors are cheap and have ridiculously small mass. We could provide him with literally billions of such targets to play with, and just wait until his ship would melt because of overheating)

It is a one trick pony, you only have to use it once and everyone starts randomizing their trajectory. And at the distances you are proposing for the source of the beam is so far away that attenuation and loss of focus will be a huge problem.

Somtaaw wrote:
There's only so much you can "go around the problem" with energy weapons. They have a functional maximum range against any target of about 1 million km, and the second you put a sidewall on the target you drop that range in half.

Well, the 1 million km is much better than average laser warhead could. And we have much more power in ship's beam armament than in any missile warhead (which was clearly stated). I.e. we still have a lot of advantages.

And even that's probably a lot more difficult than coaching an RD into the proper positioning, since a missile will no longer function for this sort of "bankshot mirror" idea. And if we're loading it onto an RD, you need:

Why not? Why couldn't we use the missile as mirror dispencer? Get rid of warhead, put mirror dispencer on the place. The mass of single-shot mirror even on modern tech would be very low; on Honorverse tech level the mass probably would be neligible.

d) probably want to up the mirror lifetime to last more than one shot, cause you're probably going to be trying to bank-shot energy beams into a whole fleet not just one ship.

No. The mirrors themselves are so cheap, that it's simpler to just use more mirrors.

Joat42 wrote:It is a one trick pony, you only have to use it once and everyone starts randomizing their trajectory.

Oh, yes, they start randomising... and what?

The mirror is NEAR the enemy. It could track the enemy close to real time. And the laser-armed ship is blasting at mirror - which position could be just pre-programmed - while the mirror do the actual targeting.

Again: the laser-ship is aiming at MIRROR. The position of the MIRROR is perfectly known to the laser-ship. The position of the enemy is unknown to the laser-ship (because of randomising), but it is known to the mirror.

And at the distances you are proposing for the source of the beam is so far away that attenuation and loss of focus will be a huge problem.

Please. Even current tech level could solve this kind of problem. In Honorverse they do much more complex tricks on usual basics.

Dilandu wrote:

Joat42 wrote:It is a one trick pony, you only have to use it once and everyone starts randomizing their trajectory.

Oh, yes, they start randomising... and what?

The mirror is NEAR the enemy. It could track the enemy close to real time. And the laser-armed ship is blasting at mirror - which position could be just pre-programmed - while the mirror do the actual targeting.

Again: the laser-ship is aiming at MIRROR. The position of the MIRROR is perfectly known to the laser-ship. The position of the enemy is unknown to the laser-ship (because of randomising), but it is known to the mirror.

And at the distances you are proposing for the source of the beam is so far away that attenuation and loss of focus will be a huge problem.

Please. Even current tech level could solve this kind of problem. In Honorverse they do much more complex tricks on usual basics.

What stops the ship from firing a graser/laser etc back at the mirror?
What stops the ship from sending a missile into the mirror?
What stops the ship from detecting the source of the beam (space isn't empty, particles caught in the beam will be detectable - which also attenuates the beam)?
What stops the ship from showing the wedge to the beam?
What stops the ship from arriving somewhere else in the system?
How does the mirror handle firearcs since they are limited to the direction of the ship originating the beam?
And are you suggesting inventing totally new beamweapons that doesn't lose focus over huge distances?
And why have no navy used that type of weapons instead of missiles?
And are you seriously considering seeding a system with millions of mirrors and ships?