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chris_gerribIn my view, for space warfare lasers and missiles go together like peanut butter and chocolate. If you don’t like that analogy, consider lasers as analogous to guns or cannon, and missiles as analogous to missiles.
There is a reason most modern fighter jets and naval warships have guns and missiles. The gun is more reliable, reasonably lethal and its cheap and light ammunition means you can get a lot more shots off than with a missile. But missiles are more lethal, and operate at longer ranges, making the expense and weight of carrying them around worth the hassle.
A laser, then, would fill the “gun” role – its ammunition, energy, is really cheap. Unlike a gun, there’s no recoil pushing your ship around, and its “projectiles” (photons) although also not guided are very much point-and-shoot. You don’t lead a target with a laser. The more expensive missiles would be reserved for more specialized rolls.
When thinking about missiles in space, one thing to consider is that they really would be much more analogous to naval torpedoes than to modern missiles. Consider that the Exocet missile mentioned in Friday’s post travels at 687 knots – or 22.9 times faster than the guided-missile frigate it nearly sank. This is because the missile moves in a different medium than the ship does.
Since spaceships and space-missiles move in the same medium, space, using (presumably) the same basic engine tech, these massive speed advantages are unlikely. One will see the missile having some speed advantage, if for other reason than not needing to reserve fuel for a return, but I would be surprised to see absolute speed advantages of more than 3 to 1. This is comparable to the speed advantage held by the also highly-lethal torpedo. This slow speed means the only way to shoot at some targets that are moving too fast (relative to the shooter) would be by laser.
Tomorrow: Two missiles to rule us all!
There is a reason most modern fighter jets and naval warships have guns and missiles. The gun is more reliable, reasonably lethal and its cheap and light ammunition means you can get a lot more shots off than with a missile. But missiles are more lethal, and operate at longer ranges, making the expense and weight of carrying them around worth the hassle.
A laser, then, would fill the “gun” role – its ammunition, energy, is really cheap. Unlike a gun, there’s no recoil pushing your ship around, and its “projectiles” (photons) although also not guided are very much point-and-shoot. You don’t lead a target with a laser. The more expensive missiles would be reserved for more specialized rolls.
When thinking about missiles in space, one thing to consider is that they really would be much more analogous to naval torpedoes than to modern missiles. Consider that the Exocet missile mentioned in Friday’s post travels at 687 knots – or 22.9 times faster than the guided-missile frigate it nearly sank. This is because the missile moves in a different medium than the ship does.
Since spaceships and space-missiles move in the same medium, space, using (presumably) the same basic engine tech, these massive speed advantages are unlikely. One will see the missile having some speed advantage, if for other reason than not needing to reserve fuel for a return, but I would be surprised to see absolute speed advantages of more than 3 to 1. This is comparable to the speed advantage held by the also highly-lethal torpedo. This slow speed means the only way to shoot at some targets that are moving too fast (relative to the shooter) would be by laser.
Tomorrow: Two missiles to rule us all!
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Date: 2012-10-15 03:39 pm (UTC)You've got Ion Drive powered Spaceships which have awful acceleration patterns up against, I assume, chemical powered missiles which can out accelerate the spacecraft by several multiples and as they don't have to aerodynamic, I think you'd have 2 stage 'missiles' - a booster stage to match rough velocity with the target, then have the actual weapon looking more like a mine with something that can rotate about all axis quickly to change velocity as it approaches to make things hard to track and stop.
The rest of it comes down to vectors. Depending on the range/acceleration, you'd still be shooting where the spaceship is going to be and there will be little that you can do if you don't have counter measures.
Of course, that's where you need to have automatically targeted lasers or rail guns or your own anti-missile missiles.
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Date: 2012-10-15 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 04:33 pm (UTC)If you're both in cruise mode on similar vectors then it would be similar, as the Specific Impulse of a chemical engine between two vehicles with relatively close velocities would be a, excuse the pun, killer.
Over longer ranges where there's a significant Delta Vee between the vehicles at the start of the engagement then it could get down as low as 2 to 1...
I'd see missiles being extremely powerful in orbital situations, where you could 'lob' something into an extreme orbit which could have all the over the horizon advantages and essentially slingshot something back up from behind the vehicle heading into a higher orbit and it would be very hard for a spaceship to change orbit fast enough to avoid it.
Also, with a stern chase, missiles would be deadly as you've very very little you can do to change velocity and something chemically powered being fired with a significant acceleration burn would be something you could watch coming for minutes or hours and there'd be bugger all you could do.
Outside of these scenarios, I suspect you'd use lasers for the reasons you point out.