![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Students of naval history may remember the USS Stark, which in May 1987 was hit by two Exocet anti-ship missiles. 37 sailors died, 21 were injured, and the ship damn near sank. I have it on reliable sources that the warheads on those Exocets did not detonate. How does my source know this? He found one of the warheads sitting on the deck after his firefighting crew had spent several hours literally kicking it out of the way!
The Exocet missile masses 670 kilograms and travels at 1100 KPH. For us Americans, that’s 1500 pounds at 687 miles per hour, or just under the speed of sound. Two of these missiles without warhead detonation damn near sank a 4,000 ton warship. The two missiles massed the equivalent of a WWII Japanese Zero fighter, one of the planes used in kamikaze attacks late in the war. In short, missiles pack one hell of a punch.
By contrast, lasers don’t pack the same punch. My admittedly small-ish laser used in the previous posts on this topic cuts a 12 inch hole in aluminum or steel. Although no mechanical device reacts well to having random holes cut into it, one could easily imagine scenarios in which a 747 took several such hits and kept flying. Yes, the cabin would depressurize and the folks sitting in the rows hit by the laser will have a very bad day indeed, but a laser might not produce a mission-kill, let alone a hard kill.
When you start thinking about merely traveling to other planets, let alone fighting battles around them, a 747 is rather small by any reasonable standard. The cabin of a 747 has around 1200 cubic meters of space, while the frigate has 11,000 cubic meters just below the waterline. So, while a naval frigate might be a big ship by space standards, a 747 would have to be a small one.
This leads me to conclude that one should expect long-range space ships to be expected to sustain multiple laser hits. However, because weight is critical, I doubt that they would be able to sustain even one hit from a medium or large missile. If you can get a missile past the lasers, you can kill a warship with a single shot.
Coming Monday: Lasers and Missiles go together like peanut butter and chocolate.
The Exocet missile masses 670 kilograms and travels at 1100 KPH. For us Americans, that’s 1500 pounds at 687 miles per hour, or just under the speed of sound. Two of these missiles without warhead detonation damn near sank a 4,000 ton warship. The two missiles massed the equivalent of a WWII Japanese Zero fighter, one of the planes used in kamikaze attacks late in the war. In short, missiles pack one hell of a punch.
By contrast, lasers don’t pack the same punch. My admittedly small-ish laser used in the previous posts on this topic cuts a 12 inch hole in aluminum or steel. Although no mechanical device reacts well to having random holes cut into it, one could easily imagine scenarios in which a 747 took several such hits and kept flying. Yes, the cabin would depressurize and the folks sitting in the rows hit by the laser will have a very bad day indeed, but a laser might not produce a mission-kill, let alone a hard kill.
When you start thinking about merely traveling to other planets, let alone fighting battles around them, a 747 is rather small by any reasonable standard. The cabin of a 747 has around 1200 cubic meters of space, while the frigate has 11,000 cubic meters just below the waterline. So, while a naval frigate might be a big ship by space standards, a 747 would have to be a small one.
This leads me to conclude that one should expect long-range space ships to be expected to sustain multiple laser hits. However, because weight is critical, I doubt that they would be able to sustain even one hit from a medium or large missile. If you can get a missile past the lasers, you can kill a warship with a single shot.
Coming Monday: Lasers and Missiles go together like peanut butter and chocolate.
