Subject:
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Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:41:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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825 times
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In lugnet.space, Brandon Harris writes:
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Hendo (John P. Henderson) wrote:
>
> > Presumably, some attackers would aim to hit targets on a planet surface, and
> > in such an event small fighters and small bombers might be useful.
>
> Probably not, actually. Fighters/bombers are expensive peices
> of equipment and getting them into (and out of) an atmosphere
> is a problem.
>
> If you want to bomb a territory, just drop rocks on it. Cheap,
> easy, accurate, utterly devastating, and non-radioactive.
True, somewhat. This is exactly what battleships and dreadnoughts can
provide: off-shore bombardment. This is the purpose of the CIG (Celestial
Impact Generator) on my own Armegeddon Class battleships (it is essentially
a non-explosive rocket propelled bullet the size of a small car. If it
impacts at top speed, it can cause an explosion equal to several nuclear
bombs, yet without the radioctive side effects that could leave the land
unusable.).
However, as I indicated, to take that land afterwards, the attacker still
needs infantry. Thus, the smaller atmospheric craft become essential to the
overall needs of space military. Otherwise you are just marauding around
blowing things up without achieving any strategic goals. (Almost sounds
like interstellar terrorism.)
> There was some physics geek who wrote this great little thing
> about the effects of firing a can of ravioli at a star
> destroyer at varying speeds. It's been circulating the net
> for years and years - I first saw it in college. Anyways,
> the sheer amount of devastation that a can of ravioli would be
> able to do at even Mach 4 is pretty impressive.
Well of course. Any small object moving fast enough (or not moving but
being hit by a fast moving ship) will be ripped apart by the forces of it.
The presumption in most SF scenarios is that the ships have some means of
avoiding or deflecting such space junk. Elsewise FTL navigation would be
entirely impossible, even for SF. Additionally, if a combatant were to
simply start throwing cans of pasta around, then it would be much easier for
a small fighter to dodge and circumnavigate such obstacles than it would be
for a large ship. Hence, again, I continue to argue that combined arms is a
reasonable assumption for SF space militaries.
> There is a problem with using unmanned craft in dogfight
> situations: ability to distinguish Friend-or-Foe. Each
> ship would have to broadcast a "friend" signal, which could
> be intercepted/cracked/etc. so that enemy ships are not seen
> as targets.
Yes. I agree. Unmanned devices would probably be limited to long range
missle weapons and artillery (such as the CIG).
> The solution to this is to have humans remote piloting the
> ships. But then, you'll end up with communication lag
> times the further away the ships are from the mothership, so
> this becomes less effective.
Sounds very Orson Scott Card to me. :)
Yes, this would be less effective. All the more reason to include carriers
in the fleet. I still think there would be a place in a space fleet for all
the ship types mentioned.
...That is until the next great innovation comes along. Presumably sooner
or later a device would be designed to detect when an attacking vessel was
about to fire, enabling a defender to dodge any shot. The result would be
that all ship-to-ship weapons would become obsolete. The innovators would
then be able to apply direct boarding of enemy ships. The days of pirates
and privateers in space! ...Until the next thing comes along... And so
on... ...Maybe someone will someday design a teleporter and just beam a
bomb to an enemy site. BAM!
-Hendo
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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| (...) Probably not, actually. Fighters/bombers are expensive peices of equipment and getting them into (and out of) an atmosphere is a problem. If you want to bomb a territory, just drop rocks on it. Cheap, easy, accurate, utterly devastating, and (...) (22 years ago, 15-Jan-03, to lugnet.space)
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