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In yesterday's post, I outlined how powerful a laser would be as a space weapon. Even here on Earth today, the weaponization of lasers is actually happening as we speak. However, lasers are not without their problems.
The first problem with lasers is aiming them. Simply put, radar beams are significantly wider than laser beams. I've used 1,000 kilometers as my maximum effective range of a laser. At that range, the laser beam width is measured in centimeters, while the radar beam width is measured in kilometers. To effectively aim a laser, one needs to see the target.
The second problem with lasers is that there are ways to make your vehicle more laser-resistant. For one thing, you could spin the outer hull, thus radically increasing the area to be heated. You could also make your outer hull out of some heat-resistant material like ceramics. Neither of these solutions are perfect or easy. Your spinning hull would have to spin at all target angles, for example, and it would still get hot. At closer ranges, burn-through would still occur.
But the real problem is actually range, or rather lack of range. Engagements at thousands of kilometers sounds like a lot (and it is) but at least theoretically ships could be detected at tens or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers. I don't know about you, but when I'm fighting a war, I want to kill my enemy as far away from me as possible. So for certain values of "range," lasers are a short-range weapon.
Tomorrow's topic: Damage control, or the USS Stark and lasers.
The first problem with lasers is aiming them. Simply put, radar beams are significantly wider than laser beams. I've used 1,000 kilometers as my maximum effective range of a laser. At that range, the laser beam width is measured in centimeters, while the radar beam width is measured in kilometers. To effectively aim a laser, one needs to see the target.
The second problem with lasers is that there are ways to make your vehicle more laser-resistant. For one thing, you could spin the outer hull, thus radically increasing the area to be heated. You could also make your outer hull out of some heat-resistant material like ceramics. Neither of these solutions are perfect or easy. Your spinning hull would have to spin at all target angles, for example, and it would still get hot. At closer ranges, burn-through would still occur.
But the real problem is actually range, or rather lack of range. Engagements at thousands of kilometers sounds like a lot (and it is) but at least theoretically ships could be detected at tens or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers. I don't know about you, but when I'm fighting a war, I want to kill my enemy as far away from me as possible. So for certain values of "range," lasers are a short-range weapon.
Tomorrow's topic: Damage control, or the USS Stark and lasers.
