The Practicality of various futuristic weapons.

[Aralonia]

*Aralonia pours some water around

okay let's see

I feel it's an appropriate number to use because it seems like a logical number to use for acquisition and response to inbound targets. The example of the quasar is available just for comparison purposes of how we actually can target faraway objects that are ridiculously small, if we want to.

I'm always talking about missiles because I'm a highly literal person.

Yes, I know Tal used manhole covers and banana peels, and I somewhat disagree with that personally. If we have a giant space penisteroid (Eros) with the laser described by Tal, we can use that to ruin shit when we're not busy shooting up the Martian ships. Metal does come in handy at very, VERY short range (I forgot to convert 15,000km into 15,000,000 meters above, blah) but not at ranges that I personally would prefer engaging enemy warheads at.

Alright, fine - so I honestly did not realise your analogies were not to be taken literally.

And regardless of the BB gun example, using that as an example - the fact that a gun-based CIWS is far, far less effective does come in handy to illustrate the shortcomings of such a weapon at the distances we're describing, which is the practicality of various futuristic weaponry.

So, no, I'm not saying that taking a metaphor literally and doing some trig has no bearing. It's just a roundabout way of doing a few things and I'm pretty sure that paring down any of my posts would contribute at least one direct thing.

[thanto_]

@thanto_:
The problem is that right now, we're discussing a laser that's being developed right now. A simple 10MW x-ray laser.

IF you're talking about the one in Los Alamos (the only one I could find that hits 10MW), according to IEEE, 10MW is the peak output. Average is just 6kW. Like I said, 10 microseconds of 10MW is just 10J, which couldn't melt an ice cube from your freezer.


Also, we're not just discussing a laser that's being developed right now. We're discussing a laser that is being developed for use in a space ship (or asteroid) in space along with its power source and heatsinks. This means considerable miniaturization and more research required to figure out how the hell to power that *in space*. It's like saying that the Germans could have used their knowledge from the Paris Gun or Schwerer Gustav to make tanks with equal capability just because the weapons existed. It's one thing to have planetary based gigantic power sources with massive planetary heatsinks, and entirely another to put all of that in a space ship (or an asteroid) in the vacuum of space and have it actually work. I mean, how are you going to get it into space in the first place?

[Aralonia]

Schwerer Gustav

For some reason I remember that there were plans to mount those guns in dual or single mounts on German battleships of higher tonnages. I may be wrong, though I am sure that the H44 design was planned to carry a 406mm or 420mm or 533mm naval rifle.

fuck me I need a copy of Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970 again

[Normandy]

Meh. My knowledge of the premises must be wrong then.

[th15]

What fun.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/featu ... irror.html