What would space combat look like?What weapons would be used

>>34033212
Extreme distance fighting. Whoever has the best sensors, detects the enemy first and shoots first wins. That'd be my guess.

>>34033212
Predictive warfare.
Try to figure out where the enemy will be moving, put shit in the way.

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>>34033212

fun stuff

http://cdm16040.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll11/id/2010

>extremely boring
>ships "turning" and fighting like the little ship in the game Asteroids because you don't fly in space the same way a plane flies in the sky
>very very very long distances
>never see your enemy
>one hit and you're left to suffocate/boil in space

Not a good time

>>34033219
This basically, warfare would basically be nothing but looking at dots on radars, you would never see the enemy with your eyes.

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>>34033212
nobody knows

I think it would probably be battleships sniping at eachother with lasers and missile ships shitting out as many nukes as physically possible.

>>34033212
Putting rockets on big ass space rocks and crashing them into the other guys planet

Doing flybys at near lightspeed while releasing marbles out the sides of the ship, giving them near-nuclear destructive force

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a lot of people are saying that space warfare would basically be boring long distance fighting which is most likely true, but in a show called Mobile Suit Gundam the show had an explanation on why fighting was done up close, more similarly to the dogfighting and naval warfare days of WW2.

the reason behind this was because of this future technology called '' Minovsky particles' which, from the very minimal understanding I have, acts like a counter to technology that would help you find the enemy from far away i.e radar and fire at them at long distances just like what we have today in modern military. apparently this fictional technology in show is actually based off of scientific theory from my understanding, along with space colonies but thats another point. there's also mobile suits, but that is also another point

anyways, what im trying to say is that in the future, we'll probably have long distance combat like the people here are suggesting until we adapt from the pressures of war to get the upperhand. this could also mean the introduction of something like the Minovsky Particles. i feel like war in the future would be very interesting

>>34033212
I could see hacking becoming a major part of it, turning off your ships main power when you get into radar range to go invisible and then using the auxiliary power to start launching viral attack after viral attack

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>>34033212
See: Children of a dead earth.

>There is no stealth in space, you can spot enemies from stupid long range

>Nuclear missiles for fighting at stupid long range
>Missile defence is easy though, so you need to close to knife fighting range
>Basically an anti-missile missile is smaller and cheaper than an anti ship missile, because chemical explosives suck in space you gotta use nukes fo ASHMS, whereas missile interceptors can be less powerful
>So ASHMS suck unless you have a big numerical advantage, then you can overpower your opponent from safety, and they're great

>More evenly matched fleets have gotta get close, because they won't be able to hurt each other with missiles
>Close range means rail-guns and lasers
>Lasers suck because they're easy to armour against
>They're good against missiles though

>Armour is surprisingly relevant, because it's good against small lightweight rail-gun projectiles, and stupid powerful against lasers
>It's fuck all good against nukes though
>Slanted armour is good, materials with high specific heat for protection against lasers (and nukes), spaced armour is great

>Having a mother-ship and drones is great because it minimises risk

Pic related, warship hit by multiple nukes, crew are still alive but the ship is mission-killed by virtue of having its engines blown off

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Walls.
Giant walls of ships in semi-circle, rectangular or triangular formations, with fuckktons of lasers.

>>34033212
Can we stop hashing over the same thread about ship-to-ship space combat? We always have the same arguments over kinetics vs lasers vs missiles, heat radiance, stealth and whether or not Atomic Rockets is a reliable authority on the matter or not.

I'd rather talk about planetary attack, or infantry weapons in a situation where the environment can be anything from a freezing infinite vacuum to a tight enclosed space habitat where your opponent controls the atmosphere.

How you invade the moon /k/? Assume you need to take the infrastructure and population mostly intact.

It wouldn't look like anything. Tiny specks firing titanium telephone poles at each each other from hundreds of thousands of miles away is actually pretty boring.

>>34033594
Yeah it involve boarding to gain resources from the spacecraft to
Stay out longer

>>34033396
>ships "turning" and fighting like the little ship in the game Asteroids because you don't fly in space the same way a plane flies in the sky
Don't see how is this a problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSa6Zl8fcyo

>>34033212
Land on a nearest planet and have a honor fight with swords. The winner gets5both ships. Loosers are deserted to die or survive and establish a colony

Space combat will never happen in humanity for 1 simple reason. Every ship would cost upwards of a trillion dollars, and be manned by thousands of sailors. Destroying such a ship would be paramount to sinking 100 aircraft carriers and demand a deviating genocidal response on earth.

Mutually Assured Destruction bruh

>>34033623
>firing titanium telephone poles at each each other
>from hundreds of thousands of miles away
Good luck trying to accelerate a titanium telephone pole to the speeds at which it would become meaningful to even try to hit something at that distance.

>>34033604
Don't forget the madmen who use conventional cannons in conventional (50mm+) calibers as coup d'grace weapons. Because reasons.

Or the nuclear EFP. Some madman figured out you could accelerate tungsten slug to ridiculous speeds if you set off a nuke juuuust right. Left a hole half a meter wide through the crew compartment. I'm just waiting on someone to nigrig a casaba howitzer.

They already managed to rig up an Orion ship in game. Not very well, but the proof of concept worked.

Cigar tubes made out of thin layers of advanced and exotic materials with lasers and small caliber railguns and massive radiators. See ChoDE.

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>>34033604
Typical space warship armament:
>Hyper-velocity rapid-fire rail-guns, multi purpose for point defence/anti ship, lots of small ones are better for point defence, less bigger ones are better for anti ship
>Missile interceptor missile launch cells
Optional armament:
>ASHM launch cells, small nuclear warhead, high delta V, higher acceleration than any ship they might want to intercept
>Torpedo launch cells, heavier thermonuclear warhead, for cracking open heavier targets (Eg: asteroid base), less acceleration
>Laser, one big laser is better than many small ones
>Rail-guns firing guided projectiles
>Rail-guns firing nuclear guided projectiles
>Drones carrying railguns

>Typical armour
>Outer layer is a big monolithic block of something with high specific heat and evaporation temperature for defence against lasers and nukes, it also functions as a Whipple shield
>Inner layer of armour (not sure what is optimal here)

[Carrier, shot to pieces by rail-guns]

>>34033594
>Invisible
No
>Viral attack
Why would that even be possible? Why would there be any open channel to allow that at all?

>>34033652
> Every ship would cost upwards of a trillion dollars, and be manned by thousands of sailors

You are an idiot. If you had enough space presence to consider a space navy, you'd have production facilities spaceborne. So no it would not cost a trillion dollars.

And there is absolutely no reason to have that large a crew.

Neither of those relate to MAD.

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>>34033611

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>>34033705
Fuck Yeah! Hard science space-ships! Wonder if they'll develop some sort of kinetic energy shield for ships that slow down incoming solid projectiles (missiles, rail-gun slugs) making them easier to destroy or negates impact damage? I think carriers in space scenarios will consist mostly of attack and bomber drones that just swarm individual ships with torpedoes and rapid firing gauss weapons. Also, ECM focused ships will be a big deal when it comes to defence/offence.

>>34033733
>locket shuffling intensifies

orion space battleships armed with casaba howitzers

>When the Orion nuclear pulse propulsion concept was being developed, the researchers at General Atomic were interested in an interplanetary research vessel. But the US Air Force was not. They thought the 4,000 ton version of the Orion would be rightsized for an interplanetary warship, armed to the teeth. And when they said armed, they meant ARMED. It had enough nuclear bombs to devastate an entire continent (500 twenty-megaton city-killer warheads), 5-inch Naval cannon turrets, six hypersonic landing boats, and several hundred of the dreaded Casaba Howitzer weapons — which are basically ray guns that shoot nuclear flame (the technical term is "nuclear shaped charge").

>>34033604
>>34033705
And then someone drops in Casaba Howitzer...

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Self guided space mines.
They recognize and move into the path of enemy ships while giving off minimal signatures

>>34033914
That was a GOOD fucking movie

>>34033212
A good video what it would look like, considering laws of physics and not science fiction. It's long but it's worth to watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvs_f5MwT04&t=1547s

>>34033903
Those things are an I WIN button in any scenario. Any reasonably sized, functional warhead is capable of cracking the moon.

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>>34033604
>stupid powerful against lasers
I don't think armour would stop lasers from being effective
the heat build-up on the surface of the target would cook everything inside

heat dispersion is a massive issue in space there is no air for heat sinks to work with

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>>34033604
>>There is no stealth in space, you can spot enemies from stupid long range

>>34033997
Wait if heat cooking the inside is the problem, why not have spaced armor with only small, well insulated connections between the two layers.

You're already in a vacuum, make yourself into a thermos.

>>34033251
>>34033620
Space infantry weapons would be a fun to design. Constraints unlike any other rifle before it.
Boarding isn't going to happen but you might be landing and doing ground combat as well and lugging around multiple weapons means extra launch cost.

>Chrome or white to deal with being in the sun in space/vacuum planetoids
>Lots of Stainless because good vacuum and temperature behavior
>Caseless because mass savings, heat won't build up fast enough to be relevant.
>Chromelined, gain twist barrel because heat JIC
>Adjustable gas system to deal with pressure changes (Maybe just 2 settings "vacuum" and "atmosphere")
>Bullpup because caseless, tight spaces, lots of vehicle travel, mass cost and armor penetration
>Electronic Ignition because it solves the problem with shitty bullpup triggers, and if your suit doesn't have power you're dead anyway.
>Design ammo with no consideration for aerodynamic effects, only terminal effects for use in vacuum.

>>34033212
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5lywTR9QSg

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>>34033572

no one cares weeb

>>34033660
Do you not understand that Isaac Newton is the deadliest summabitch in space?

>>34033928
what is up with the way that guy speaks? is he autistic, but he's learned to speak a little more carefully, but it still leaks out in the way he talks?

>>34034466
Yep, that`s too hard for the undeveloped brains of the likes of you. Go back to the Battlefield and Star Wars.

>>34034529
Your spaceship produce enough heat internally, to require huge, hundred square meters wide radiators, glowing orange-hot. The more surface you have, the easier it is to radiate heat. If you make your ship into thermos, you will increase the heat buildup.

>>34034466
>In related news, Sarah Brady is right, AKMs don't belong in a trashcan, and you aren't a poorfag.

Rocket equation + telescope/laser focal length equation + life support @circa 300 kelvin + drive flare at thousands of kelvin...

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>he thinks we'll waste valuable ships and stations as weapons platforms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG5v7ng0o4A

>>34033212
i fucking hate the gravity ring design for warships it's utterly retarded. for space station or some early chemical generation colony ship it's okay. not for a fucking warship there is no point at all!

what i like to do is make them long very long, like a mile long, and put the crew quarters right after the engine, so you can either continuously accelerate with 1-3G depending on how much of a hurry you are in and up to 5G combat accelerations for maneuvers.

or when you just drift you can spin the ship around the central axis and make artificial gravity in the same direction as you would under propulsion.

simple design no moving parts no hassle.

>>34035144
A retractable G-unit would be beneficial to crew health, because any interplanetary warship will be in transit for a minimum of 6 months.
6 Months of zero-g is a serious health hazard

>>34035437
reading comprehension issues m8?

There would be no massive spaceships like you are in film and video games. There would be little to no human factor in warfare. The bulk of the fighting would be done by thousands of swarm drones which are very expendable and easily replaced. Its impossible to armor anything significantly enough to prevent an enemy projectile from killing you, or at least it will be for the foreseeable future, so the best hope you have is many drones miles apart. If they take out one, it's not a big deal and then they're down a projectile with the rest of the swarm attacking them. That's far better than just focusing all your man power on a space battleship that's annihilated in one or two shots.

>>34035494
you can't make cheap and expendable drones that also have good mileage and range.
you still need a drone carrier and you still need to transport troops for planetary operations.

i'm not saying drones and also missiles will not be a huge factor in space warfare. but we definitely will have big warship. armoring them is impossible tho. it will be up to the drones to intercept anything.

>>34034917
Sounds like he has a slight speech defect with rs.

So, will the spin-stabilized bullets shot from a rifled barrel in a space consistently hit a target tip first over any distance?

>>34033219
This would eventually lead to bloodless, chess like warfare.
>two sides maneuvering and counter-maneuvering while one or both close in on objective.
>A clear and undeniable advantage to one side or the other arises.
>"Welp, looks like they got us. Get them on screen and lets talk terms."

>>34033219
>Whoever has the best sensors, detects the enemy first

You realize there's no such thing as stealth in space, right?

Wehave telescopes that can detect things literally on the edge of the observable universe and yet people think they're magically invisible? I don't understand how this myth even got started.

>>34034936
>>34034964
http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nwgs/cm_all.pdf

>>34035808
>I don't understand how this myth even got started.
Yes, we can see nebula at the beginning of the universe, but we can't even see everything in out own solar system.

>>34035559
>you can't make cheap and expendable drones that also have good mileage and range.
Fun fact about space you can. In atmosphere size means range because drag. In space it doesn't' because no drag. Physics m8.

>and you still need to transport troops for planetary operations.
>transport troops
> ---> >>>/co/

>>34035847
>but we can't even see everything in out own solar system.

Uh, yes we can. The Hubble is not designed for that, but we have many other telescopes and sensors that are.

And you can bet that if it became militarily necessary for us to watch the whole solar system 24/7 we'd find a way to do it very quickly.

Lots of missiles.

>>34035923
Sensors that can both track and scan in all directions are going to have grades of ability and reactions times.

Not that you need really fast reaction times.

>>34033212
There will be lots of laser firing drones controlled by human minds

>>34035958
You'd do it the same way non-space forces do it. Use a wide-view, low-rez sensor for detection, and when it finds something classify it with a narrow view high-rez sensor.

Scanning the complete solar system in low-res would probably take 4-7 hours with the right gear; which is not bad when travel times are measured in weeks and months.

>>34035923
https://amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2013/Special_Topics/WOODS.pdf
https://www.nap.edu/read/12842/chapter/5

>>34033212
you should really read "the lost fleet" it is basically hardocre milaty scify, which means the author really though about what he writes.

>basically space combat mean waiting for hours to approach the enemy
>space is so big if you really move with 50% of light speed or something you still need hours until you reach the enemy fleet if it is at least in the same star system.
>then the contact lasts for milliseconds because with the speed you are flying, you will instantly be out of range again
>rockets and such can be used but are basically useless at that speeds and ranges,
>light plays an extrem special role
>for example you "warp with your fleet in the enemy star system"
>because your fleet just starts to reflect light from that point, you have a tactical advantage, because you will see the enemy fleet earlier as they will see you (if you undertsand what I mean)
>because sensors cannot tectect anything faster than light

>>34035841
MIRV's in a 20 minute exoatmospheric glide window != giant megawatt or gigawatt torch drives thrusting for weeks with exhaust hotter than the sun.

>>34035863
size means fuel efficiency in space. we can't really make the good energy/mass drives small scale. especially not cheap.

>>34033212
drone warfare. the drones would be comparitively small (likely under 1 cubic meter) with thrusters on every side and guns on every side.
Space is an intensely 3d environment. with no issues of atmosphere and drag to worry about, you can go in every direction. manned fighters are stupid to build when you can literally program an advanced stupid ai that can control hundreds of these stupid little drones that can just be dropped en-masse from the cargo bay.

>>34035996
?
Why would you be doing that much thrusting

>>34035998
Chemical and ion thrusters scale downwards ok. Also you can make MIRV. Accelerate many small objects with one big engine and then coast by inertia. Remember, no drag. Oh, wait it is actually already done in the real fucking space warfare. Who would think of that?

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Probably something like submarine warfare at really long distances.

>>34036000
>you can go in every direction
that is where you are wrong. basically your momentum will carry you most of the time on a predictable path. see it takes as much time to deaclerate as to accelerate in space because there are no wings to make use of.

so once you accel for one hour in a direction the hectic turning around and thrusting will make negligible difference to your trajectory. sure it's still useful to avoid shit but not to change direction or angle of approach as with planes.

>>34036049
There is no water to cool nuclear reactors ins space. This make entire space enterprise:
1. Energy starved.
2. No fun because of the 1.

>>34035808
You know that you are observing the light from that shit right. Light takes time to travel. So you when you look at a really distant object, you are seeing what it looked like probably years and years ago. It litterally takes 8 minutes for the suns light to reach earth. So if you look at the sun, you are seeing 8 minutes into the past. Also those sensors are massive and wouldnt fit on a star fighter. Yet.

>>34036075
you don't need water when the shadows are negative 50

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>>34033494
>>34033604
My niggas. CoaDE fucking rocks

>>34036075
you naturally radiate heat away in space
It doesn't limit power, as you get hotter you radiate heat faster

>>34036075
1. I never said anything about nuclear reactors.
2. Just because you can't imagine it doesn't mean it's impossible.

>>34035958
>Not that you need really fast reaction times.

A) I think you could still build one with fast reaction times. It would just be very large.

B) Well it depends, doesn't it? You need a relatively quick scan so that you can track the movements of individual objects within a cloud to identify each of them. If you're too slow it will be too hard to tell them apart. But you would be able to see them for sure.

>>34035984

Neat!

>>34036106
but you can also concentrate your heat to heat radiators it's not a big issue, if the radiators are overwhelmed you can dump coolant mass.

>>34036090

Why are you worried about how accurate your reading of something light minutes away is? How exactly is that object supposed to threaten you?

Detecting objects at combat ranges would be fast and easy.

>>34036042
>Chemical and ion thrusters scale downwards ok.
both are utterly unfit for long travel and combat maneuvering. fusion drives or fission torches for the military. you won't intercept a fission torch as missile with a silly ion drive. and chemical burners are sure capable but very very fucking limited in burn time. after which you are sitting duck.

>>34036165
Radars today cannot detect stealth aircraft at fucking 20 km

IR decoys are easy to spam

Yes detection is a massive issue

>>34036206
to expand on this:

ultralight recon probes and maybe mines can go on ion drive. it's hard enough to detect it, and after a while he speed builds up.

and chemical burners are insanely useful as first stage boosters for the anti-ship missiles and as primary for short range interceptor missiles. they can put out insane G with very little mechanical complexity.

but burn time for chemicals is 1-2 sec with that G. and most of the missiles mass will be the motor fuel.

so they do have their uses. everything does. but for main ship engine if it's not nuclear or annihilation drive it's crap. unless space magic warp drives or whatever come to play because then you again need gravity rings and everything changes again and shit.

>>34036275
>Radars today cannot detect stealth aircraft at fucking 20 km

So what?

We're not talking about radar detecting aircraft.

>>34036305
every active detection is greatly limited in range.
their efficiency loses with r^4. passive only with r^2 but resolution and covering the entire fucking sky will be a massive computational problem (which coincidentally causes heat fatigue) and again very limited in range or very limited in field of view.

>>34035980
Radio transmission from Earth to Mars takes 4 to 24 minutes. One way.

All current sensors are hard capped for military useage by one variable. The speed of light in a vacuum. By the time you've identified a target, they have had an equal amount of time to move.

>>34036323

Space is not the sky. Signals can travel much further.

>>34033212
The Expanse is kind of an interesting little show about space travel, the odd bit of shooting and stuff.
It's got some elements of 'science' in the sci-fi

>>34036275
Short wavelength radars can.

>>34034917

He has a speech impediment. Pronounces R's like W's. Think, "Wascally Wabbits"

>>34036389
distances in space are a few magnitudes greater and watch this: polynomial
that means it's very fucking bad when you try to scale shit. double the distance and you get 16th signal strength on your active scanners meanwhile atmospheric dampening is pretty much linear in comparison.

>>34036733
of course you will have problems with radars sooner than that, the maximum unambiguous range is a few hundred kilometers for current radar tech. after that you have to combine results with triangulation.

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>>34034529

>Caseless because mass savings, heat won't build up fast enough to be relevant.
>In a vaccuum environment
>Laughingwhores.jpg

I think you vastly underestimate how much work air cooling does to keep your shit from reaching cookoff temperatures/damage temperatures.

You want casings. Moreover, you want casings that will take as much fucking heat as possible out of the system, while being as light as possible.

>>34036809
you don't want casings you want coolant gas.
after every firing you run a little co2 of nitrogen through the barrel to remove heat with expanding gas. problem solved.

>>34036733

I really don't understand why you feel so worried about detecting things that are light years away. How in the hell is something orbiting Alpha Centauri supposed to threaten your forces orbiting the Earth?

>>34033212
If we're talking about low-intensity skirmishing, probably a lot of trying to find the enemy then perforation using high-velocity, small diameter rounds most likely launched via compressed gas or something, and what fighting would occur man-to-man would most likely be very close.

If it becomes an actual theatre of war, then it goes to all the guys discussing sensors/detection.

>>34034988
As stupid, as it can get... pew-pew visible lasers included

>>34033705
>>34033604
Sauce on picture?

>>34037778
Google "Children of the Dead Earth"

>>34036856
>let's put a tank of (liquid) gas so it is fucking heavy and need lot of power to maintain cold.

>>34037798
>Children of the Dead Earth
Thanks senpai, looks awesome.

>shoot laser beam at insanely long range
>damage vacuum hull
>destroy enemy vessel/crew instantly
that's about it

>>34037913
>in future, airlock won't exist anymore

>>34035713
Not over any distance, but spin stabilization will help to even out things like the effect of photon pressure and solar wind. The accuracy of your gun will have more of an effect than anything else.

>>34035923
We don't even know whether or not vulcanoid asteroids exist.

>>34036049
Submarine warfare where you both know where the other is.

Hopefully like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzP4L90CCWw

>>34035437
Gunit!

>>34037913
That entirely depends on the size of the hull, not to mention diffraction.

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>>34033572
>Annie May is real life now because I said so

>>34033925
What was it that people said. It's the best parody of Star Trek while being the best Star Trek movie.

>>34037913
>using crew in space

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Battlestars.

>>34034961
This was just a response to the lasers cooking people thing. You can still have radiators, there are ways to move heat around through the shell.

>>34036809
Not really. You can dump on full auto fast enough that the amount of air cooling is negligible to the heat build up without compromising barrel integrity.

With a system like the FN HAMR, which automatically switches from Closed bolt to Open bolt when the chamber heats up you can prevent cookoffs. Not because open bolt cools faster in a vacuum, because it doesn't, but because it doesn't put a round into the chamber until you pull the trigger anyway.

>>34037877
This >>34036856 wasn't me, but once its compressed you don't need to add any more power unless you're recompressing the gas after (which you aren't because that would keep heat in the system). Expanding gas is cold, just by virtue of adiabatic expansion. It is that he wants to use to cool the weapon, not by chilling a coolant and running it around.

Still would be heavy af though.

https://tauzero.aero/whats-out-there/

>Harnessing energy levels great enough to vaporize the surface of planets – How do we become responsible stewards of such prowess?

Deathstar sooner than expected boys

I see space combat being largely diplomatic. I think very rarely would you see two ships shooting at each other, just because I think most voyages into outer space would be peaceful in nature. I think if there would be any actual fighting, it'd be more like trench warfare. You potentially risk blowing up the enemy ship if you rupture the hull, and the explosion could damage your ship and you will invariably lose any valuable resources (parts, readily consumable energy, enemy intel) so I see a lot of stalemate situations where ships are within relative close proximity, setting up "no man's land" inbetween them and different combat outposts surrounding each others' ships.

I think any actual combat would be on the ships, if someone were able to blind enemy sensors long enough to send fighters across no man's land and able to board the enemy ship, of if they have some sort of tactical advantage like cloaked ships and were able to board without them knowing, complete surprise attack.

Then again, I watch a shitload of Star Trek so that's definitely shaping my view of space combat.

This is probably dumb, but do you think one could place the coolant pipes around the crew compartment and to the radiators so the life support doesn't have to use as much energy keeping the temperature livable? Radiation wouldn't be a concern because you would have to shield the crew compartment anyway.

>>34033594

>hacking
>in space

You do realize that there is no internet in space, right?

>>34040066
>Internet connectivity in space is structured around a network of tracking and data relay satellites—the same fleet of communications satellites that NASA engineers on the ground use to communicate with astronauts on the International Space Station. And it's not like there's any shortage of technology aboard. “They have laptop computers, including one in their personal sleeping quarters, which they can use for limited web access—email, tweeting, and news,” David Steitz, a spokesman for NASA, told me. “They also have tablets onboard they can use for various operational tasks, but also video conferences with family and friends on the ground.”

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>>34033212
When you think about it, it can become something like old pitched battle where the two army where facing each other and just shoot row by row

>>34039765
Yeah but the gas has to be cold for storage reasons (less volume)

children of a dead earth looks great
i think space combat at fleet level would consist
of layers of sensor drones which would relay information
to weapons drones far behind them
a huge mass of really small vessels that would enact
a very slow ww1 esk battle driven by artificial intelligence
humans would only monitor the after action reports if they won
while the losing side would of had it's command center wiped out

>>34033212
Read The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino or The Forge of God and Anvil of the Stars by Greg Bear. Space combat is awful especially when you involve relativistic weapons. Also Footfall by Larry Niven and James Pournelle has a good near-Earth battle.

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>>34040354

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>>34040332
No it doesn't. We don't store liquid nitrogen like that here on Earth. As long as the the container is strong enough to resist the pressure, it doesn't need to be cooled.

>inb4 but the pressure difference between Earth and Vacuum
A 4% increase in pressure differential is not going to invalidate the concept. The tank will just be under slightly less absolute pressure to maintain the same gauge pressure.

>inb4 we chill rocket fuel
Yes because rockets are huge, heavy and need the highest fuel density possible. If they chill it they can use weaker, and much lighter tanks for the same volume. These tanks make up a significant proportion of the rockets overall mass.

Yes you would get more liquid if you cooled it, but you'd lose overall because of the complexity, weight, and thermodynamics of cooling it. Better to just carry a bigger, stronger tank at that scale.

Why are you making me argue this? Its a stupid idea anyway - it'd be heavy, incredibly limited, would introduce temperature extremes that wouldn't have time to equalize before you fired the next shot, and you'd have to introduce enough gas fill the entire barrel to ensure contact for convection, good luck trying to do that when one end of the barrel is open to vacuum. And its irrelevant because the temperature problems aren't that big a deal.

>>34039938
>and the explosion could damage your ship
Nah, the area of the sphere of debris increases with the square of the distance.
Amount of debris remains constant, this means the density of debris decreases with the square of the distance, and would therefore be incredibly minor at the sort of distances combat would occur at.

>if someone were able to blind enemy sensors long enough
That's a pretty big if - blinding sensors means being actively emitting. ARMs already exist today, and missiles can fly faster than your boarding craft can. That is a game of chicken the boarder's ship will almost definitely lose.

>I see space combat being largely diplomatic.
This wouldn't surprise me though, ships are fragile, and expensive (not a trillion dollars as one Anon said, but expensive).

>Star Trek
Star Trek makes some sense in its own universe, with shields and warp and teleportation, but without those its doesn't really apply to real life/hard scifi. Still a fun universe with some good parts though.

>>34041043
But getting said projectiles up to that speed is energy intensive as fuck, and if they hit ANYTHING as going near .c will mean that the mass of the projectile is = to antimatter.

>>34040338
>>of layers of sensor drones which would relay information
>>to weapons drones far behind them

No, that is really unnecessary. No information can be relayed faster than light. And the "light speed lag" is the most troublesome obstacle at those distances, not the sensor quality. All you need is three vessels with sensors, to performe pinpoint-accurate triangulation. Probably, a few spares, just in case. And no need to put sensors in front of weapons.
>>a huge mass of really small vessels that would enact
>>a very slow ww1 esk battle driven by artificial intelligence

Small, expendable vessels, are a possibility. AI, not much so. Also, drones don`t need complex AI, they are not much more than simple missile, with cannon in a place of warhead. Strategic planning is goung to be left for humans for decades to come. Also, no such thing as "slow" in space. More like - a lot of time for maneuvers, very little time for actual combat.

Also, Casaba Howitzers, AKA nuclear lance, or nuclear shape charge, are dirt cheap (compared to warships, or lasers of comparable output), work at relativistic speeds and at laser`s distances. That means, that the side, deploying such nuclear fuck you en mass, is literally forsing the other side to rely on weapons of adequate range.

>>34041602
>And its irrelevant because the temperature problems aren't that big a deal
See >>34036809

>>34033831
If only kircheis was here

>>34042059
See >>34039765

>>34038963
How can there be explosions in space if there's no oxygen?

>>34042148
You know that heat problems on a weapon doesn't only concern cookoffs right?

>>34042167
Explosive charges contain their own oxydizer

>>34042167
Depends on the explosive and what its hitting. If it has its own oxidizer, there will be a traditional explosion. Kinda pointless to do that outside of an atmosphere though, as there is no medium for concussion and the gas from the explosive itself will quickly dissipate. You want to focus on creating fragments.
If you catastrophically rupture an atmosphere, you might be able to use burn something in that atmosphere as it vents - but honestly probably not unless its VERY large because vacuum will pull the heated gas away too fast for it to maintain the chain of ignition.

>>34042185
I do, but the thermal differences between cased and caseless aren't as drastic as people are implying. Cook off is the primary issue, not heat transfer to the chamber/barrel.

The reason caseless has thermal issues isn't just because the case acts as a heat sink. It also acts as insulation and thermal mass for the next round. When the next cased round hits the hot chamber, the brass separates the powder form the chamber wall. It also has superior thermal conductivity, and preferentially sinks heat into the casing rather than transferring it to the propellant.
When caseless round hits the hot chamber, there is no barrier between it and the hot chamber wall and by design it has a poorer thermal conductivity to aid ignition. So if your propellant ignites at a low temperature like nitrocellulose does, this is a problem.

This is why the problem with the G11 was solved with High Ignition Temperature Propellant not opening the gun up to cooling.

The casing of a 5.56 pulls less than 1/10th of the total heat a cartridge dumps when fired. Firing 3 extra rounds per magazine is as significant as the difference in Cased vs Caseless when you ignore cook-off.

>>34034583
wow.. the crazy stuff the USA was developing in the 50/60's

What happened America, where did your drive go?

>>34042355
You're right, but I think that barrel bending due to overheat and vibration can be a major issue and LMG and other automatic weapons. Since we still have to change barrels in atmosphere, it can only be worst in vaccum.
Also revolving action might be sucessful as a sort of radiator. See :
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3#On-board_gun
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikhter_R-23

>>34042397
>be a major issue and LMG
on an LMG*

>>34042397
>overheat and vibration can be a major issue and LMG and other automatic weapons.
Yeah, when you're dealing with machine guns then it becomes more relevant. But then the weight savings also become more important. A slightly lower ROF might be a better sacrifice than switching cartridge type.

>Since we still have to change barrels in atmosphere, it can only be worst in vaccum. Also revolving action might be sucessful as a sort of radiator
A revolving chamber or revolving cannon just delays your problem by X times where X is the number of barrels. An emplaced/mounted gun can have coolant systems like a WW1 Vickers, potentially indefinitely if you have radiators on whatever its mounted too rather than waiting for the barrels themselves to radiate. I can see both systems having different advantages depending on specifics of the situation though.

>barrel bending
I wonder if barrels will have fewer issues at the same temperatures, when in microgravity. No gravity means less and fewer forces on the barrel, might mean less bending and a slightly higher tolerance for temperature.

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>>34042355
Really, why you all are concentrated on traditional casing/gunpowder design? Use liquid, bi-component propellant, smart dosage, recoil compensation, and electric ignition. Yes, the gun is much more complex elctronic-wise, but no cooking issue, no casing, simpler firing mechanism, less requirement for service. Also, easier to adapt for environments with different gravity and different penetration requirements. A mean you DO NOT WANT to penetrate the wall of pressurized shelter. No, explosive decompression won`t happen, but still that is not good.

>>34042572
>simpler firing mechanism, less requirement for service.
I'd really doubt that. Precise injection requirements, pressurized cartridges, solenoids for injection control, seals.

That is not a field serviceable weapon.

>A mean you DO NOT WANT to penetrate the wall of pressurized shelter. No, explosive decompression won`t happen, but still that is not good.

Eh, it takes a long time to decompress through bullet holes and if you can't penetrate space ship walls, body armor is going to be ridiculously effective against your weapon.

If you're fighting in a pressurized anything, you should be suited up anyway. They control the atmosphere and the environment. If they felt like venting the section you're in, you're shit out of luck. Or more insidiously, just slowly decreasing the O2 percentage until you can't think straight, pass out and die.

>>34033212

Relativistic weapons.

Shit fired out of tubes at double digit percentages of the speed of light. Enormously powerful explosively formed penetrators.

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Explain to me why casaba howitzers and bomb pumped lasers wouldnt be the best weapons.

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>>34037913
>put bigass mirror on side of ship
>enemy tries to laser you
>reflect laser back
>mfw

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>>34042741
>yfw

>>34042680
Because IMHO space warfare won't be between equally matched combatants slugging it out in a featureless void.

It'll be around and between pieces of orbital infrastructure. And you'll want to take them, not destroy them.

>>34033212

Sensors aren't a problem in space, the enemy ship will have to radiate heat into the void of space or have its crew will suffocate.

Even if you manage to have a surface temperature of 30 kelvin and present a cross section of 3 meters(check it yourself: 13.4 * sqrt(S)*T^2 bein S the cross section in m^2 and T your surface temperature, the result is given in km)(also realistically this won't happen unless your target has a number of satellites that you can count with one hand and sharing orbit) you can still be detected from 15 million meters away.

Which won't seem like much since the moon is 385 million meters away, but have in mind that to get into the moon we need days, and 15 million meters still gives a very long reaction time for your surface or space station defenses.

Detecting a spaceship by radar/lidar might only work for missiles that need to target specific parts of a ship, between ships the distance to achieve contact are too big, and the important thing here is contact, once the enemy tracks you there is no way you can their sensors out of you

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>>34033997
>the heat build-up on the surface of the target would cook everything inside

This only applies if your target is small, remember a space warship is built to dissipate heat from engines, avionics, weapons, and it has a big outer layer or armour to use as a heat sink. Lasers suck against big targets, *maybe* with an exception for damaging vulnerable targets protruding from armour like sensor arrays
or weapon emplacements.

They're really great against small targets like missiles and drones though.

>Gunship crippled by a lucky hit to the crew compartment

>>34033604


The problem with Choade is that missiles are too dumb, they get confused by flares and the only solution is to have with you ridiculously weak ships with giant lasers with them as specialiced CIWs.

And I'm not sure this would work since the AI tends to put the missiles in a way that there is a chain reaction.

That, and I'm not sure if I haven't tried missiles with very heavy sloped armor.

But even if one missile gets close, its enough to wreck a ship. So this makes me wonder, would future space warfare be all about planets throwing massed missiles at each other and the one with more wins?

Because missiles are not dumb enough to be confused by flares neither to fly so close that they can have a chain reaction and even if their armor was made of diamond they would still be cheaper than a full spaceship.

And that without accounting the casabas that solve the problem of ocercoming active defenses by exploding beyond their effective reach.

>PD: Is it me or the heat build up of lasers is not well modeled in game? I have seen a a spaceship shooting its laser for docens of seconds(without any effect on the enemy armor) without making their radiators turn into plasma.

>>34033914


EXCALIBUR mines.

If I remember right, the whole idea of one of this mad projects(on the levels of pluto project or orion battleship) is that you would put these in orbit near the planet and when the order was given a nuclear bomb from the inside would explode, but since one of the first things that happens in a nuclear explosion is the production of gamma rays those gamma rays would be redirected to their target and fuck it up very hard.

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>>34042633
>>I'd really doubt that. Precise injection requirements, pressurized cartridges, solenoids for injection control, seals.

>>That is not a field serviceable weapon

It is definitely not. However, you definitely won`t be able to "field service" any kind of weapon in a space suite. And on board of your ship, you can have any kind of service equipment. So, why not? Also, it isn`t that hard. You don`t need pressurised cartridge. You need 1) barrel and ignition chamber with 2 additional ports for liquid propellant. Simple as fuck loading mechanism and just as simple cartridge, that houses only bullets. Propellant is in the 2 separate tanks under some pressure in you backpack. Mechanism loads first bullet (not a round!). Dosator injects mix of 2 propellant componints. Electric spark ignits the shit. Recoil loads next round. In case of zero-g, adequate amount of propellant is spent to make the backblast, to compensate the momentum, created by weapon. It is really simpler than AK-47, mechanics-wise.

>>34035841

I don't have around the 50 hours I calculate it would take me to read and understand the document.

So tell, is about atmospheric stealth vehicles?

COADE has a bunch of problems; centrally the arbitrary engagement ranges and complete absence of AI. The latter point cripples the game in so many ways.

> Drones are dumb
> Missiles are dumb
> Targetting is dumb
> Manoeuvring (tactical and orbital) is dumb unless micromanaged to death.

Oh, also - the campaign missions are dumb as fuck because half of them come down to fiddling with the damn manoeuvre planning arrows for hours until you finally manage to get the right burn timing in the right direction - it's purely a matter of artificial difficulty thanks to a piss-poor UI.

Information presentation in general is extremely bad; screen space is used in a horribly inefficient fashion.

>>34035847
>>34035923
You can detect changes in mass in a large area.
Basically you have network of satellites around Earth spaced 5-10 million km apart.
Mass is distorting space-time continuum and satellites can detect that with changes in time lasers need to reach them.
Just like that upcoming test where 3 satellites will be 3m km apart and by using special designed mass detectors they will
measure curvature of space in Solar System.

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>>34042880
>The problem with Choade is that missiles are too dumb, they get confused by flares and the only solution is to have with you ridiculously weak ships with giant lasers with them as specialised CIWs.
They mostly fixed this in recent patches, on release flares made missiles worthless, now they're all right. Missile AI is a lot smarter, you can "Distribute fire" amongst targets, and there is a "scatter" option that disperses a missile fleet and makes them less vulnerable to anti missiles, and their brother's nuclear blasts.

>That, and I'm not sure if I haven't tried missiles with very heavy sloped armor.
I tried this, it's hilarious watching your enormous missiles tank point defence fire, but it's worse than lots of smaller, less armoured missiles since you need so much more fuel to make up for the extra weight.

>But even if one missile gets close, its enough to wreck a ship.
Not necessarily true, spaced armour is the shit if you leave a gap, the inverse square law is a harsh mistress.

>would future space warfare be all about planets throwing massed missiles at each other and the one with more wins?
I think this might be the case, it's hard to say since this can't be modelled in the game, but I think asteroid based missiles would be very strong

>>34042902
> arbitrary engagement ranges

I think the problem is that the engagement range is fixated according to speed and direction and not adding the effective reach of your weapons(since you can also tell the game to ignore this an shoot as as the ships can)

>Lack of AI

This is true, multiplayer would half solve this, but I wouldn't expect more from a game developed by one person charging 20 bucks for it.
> Drones are dumb
> Missiles are dumb

agreed, but seems like a balance issue, if missiles are too strong, whats the point of having ships?

> Targetting is dumb

Uh? Why?

>> Manoeuvring (tactical and orbital) is dumb unless micromanaged to death.

Orbital maneuvering is a bit cumbersome for complicated tactis that require separation from the main fleet and such, but I don't see much of a problem with it.

Neither with tactical maneuvering, the basic movements are there and it bogs down to how much do you want to expose your ship to the enemy.

> half of them come down to fiddling with the damn manoeuvre planning arrows

Not all of them, the combat parts let you use your imagination much more, from making simple flybys to retrograding when you share orbit with your enemy.

> piss-poor UI.

The UI seems that it does the job, not great not bad, just enough.

> bad; screen space is used in a horribly inefficient fashion.

I never felt like that.


For now the most annoying part of the game, by far, is when the enemy scapes my flyby because it changed its direction by 0,000000001 degrees and I have to manually ask for the game to put my fleet back on track again.

>>34042741
clean aluminum hull at steep angle will reflect laser shots very well.

>>34042929
> Targetting is dumb
Missile AI used to be pants on head retarded, they would always go for the largest heat source, one flare could distract 100s of missiles, missiles would target heaps of molten slag left over from past engagements before perfectly healthy enemies.

They have since fixed most of this though.

>>34037566
not light year a few light-seconds away is problematic especially if stealth shape matte black heading towards you and blocking the drive signature from view.

>>34037913
>make crew wear space suits
>depressurize ship before combat
>small holes are worthless

>>34034917
Rhotacism is a speech defect, anon.

A ship coated in vantablack with minimal active systems simply using inertia and small bursts of power instead of constantly running engines to move and maneuver would be a motherfucker to find.

>>34042898
>It is really simpler than AK-47, mechanics-wise.
Yeah but it involves more complicated parts, like elctrovans for the propellants (two of them) and tubing outside ov the barrel. Also having rocket fuel in your backpack is worst than bearing a flamethrower i think.
>suite
Are you, by chance, a frog?

Long distance and boring.

>"Captain, enemy ship detected 40,000,000 miles away."
>"Very well, launch missile."

5 months later

>"We've missed the target. Firing second missile."

>>34043016
>simply using inertia and small bursts of power instead of constantly running engines
Then I can just juke a little harder than, who cares if you're stealth if you never catch me?

Radar: No Horizon to hide behind
Ir detection: No atmosphere to attenuate the IR, if you're hotter than the cosmic microwave background, I can see you from ages away

>All these guys talking about instant, super long distance detection.
I think you forgot that electromagnetic waves travel a 300km/s.
Even from the sun to the earth, light needs 8 minutes to come. Same for radars / IR

>>34033212
Play some Kerbal space program to learn about orbital mechanics. Helps give perspective on what space combat would look like.

Would be all about movement and controlling distance and speed, combined with detection, ECM, and long range weapons

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>>34042849
mostly my assessment was driven by current tech the iss barely gets by even with recent upgrades
future craft could could be cooled by the systems used for superconductors (gonna need big energy to make space travel worth while)
or by way of peltier arrays in other areas

>>34043114
Correct.

You know how much does it take to travel to Mars with a hohman transfer? 9 month

Even if you made a Brachistochrone transfer it would still be 3 days.

So I'm pretty sure you will detect anyone in time.

>>34043091
>catch
It's not a hugging contest or a rousing game of tag man.

Also you should never assume anything is perfect. Detection rates might be good, they might not. You might as well be saying war is pointless because drones.

>>34043142


Even if you only detected 50% of almost random space objects every day, if a spaceship trip takes months to happen you will still detect it more sooner than later.

>>34033219

Just a thought on this, sensors require some sort of feedback - over previously unfathomable distances such as those in space, we would need a rapid advance in technology for them to be plausible at such ranges. Radar and such would be too slow depending on the maneuverability of spacecraft.

Also, stealth technology would still exist. Yes, you can see a ship from the other side of the galaxy. But it's not like we wouldn't think of this, and give them a stealth coating that would absorb/reflect sensors. They would likely also be able to deploy obfuscating and jamming technologies to nearby space limiting the effectiveness of observation and weapons. Like an airplane popping flares or sprinkling metal flakes in a mine field.

Space warfare would likely evolve like ground combat has evolved over the course of humanity. I don't think we can accurately depict the usage of technologies that don't exist yet, especially in warfare

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Drone carriers.
its all about who has the faster processing power anyway.

>>34043114
>I think you forgot that electromagnetic waves travel a 300km/s.
You missed two zeros here.

>>34036041
To get places in days or weeks instead of months or years.

NERVA > NTR > everything else

>>34043166
Whoops, thanks for correcting me.

>>34043114
>300km/s
meant 300 000 km/s

>>34043134
Correct.

But if you are tracking a target with delay, it much more harder to eliminate it. Lasers sound like a good way to bypass that, at least for stellar system uses

>>34043127
>mostly my assessment was driven by current tech the iss barely gets by even with recent upgrades
The ISS is super marginal and lightly built because everything has to be hauled up out of earth's gravity well on a rocket, if you have industry in the asteroids or on the moon then building much heavier, stouter spaceships becomes an option

>>34043182

Even more correct.

So you shoot when you have a firing solution that you can trust is not a waste of ammo or just resort to missile trucks.

Lasers might seem to also solve the problem, but are very inefficient in energy.

>>34043150
Oh sure but there's still plenty of issues and if even one heavily armed ship makes it by undetected there's a good shot you'll have a very nasty weapon (or a few hundred) crammed up your backside. Detection of a purpose built stealth ship among all the other bullshit just zipping around is not going to be an easy thing.

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>>34043185
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/luna/esp_luna_62.htm
mine the moon to lower tidal levels ?
>climate change solved

Everyone has heard of atomic rockets ad nauseam, so here are 2 other good informed-layman type resources:

https://toughsf.blogspot.com/
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com

Rocketpunk no longer updates but did the spherical war cows series back in the day, which calc'd out the dynamics between different lasers and kinetics.

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>>34033212
Read this.

>>34043208


Now that we are at recomending scientific blogspots.

Lets add another one.

http://atomic-skies.blogspot.com.es/2016/08/atomic-powered-tanks-part-1.html

>>34042898
>You don`t need pressurised cartridge
> Propellant is in the 2 separate tanks under some pressure in you backpack
So pressurized propellant cartridges like I said.

>you definitely won`t be able to "field service" any kind of weapon in a space suite.
You can field strip an AK in a space suit, you could remediate all major malfunctions you could do here on Earth.

Even current space suits have enough dexterity for that. Look at their tool use on the ISS - its clumsy but its not that clumsy. The only problem is the controls/pins/etc needing to be up-scaled for use with space suits like how cold weather rifles are.

>. And on board of your ship, you can have any kind of service equipment.
And back at the FOB you have an armorer. Wars aren't forgiving environments where you can go home if you need to. Boarding a ship, attacking a planet, whatever. If you can't get your rifle to run there, it doesn't matter if it would be a 3 second fix somewhere else.

And your design is way less reliable than an modern rifle.

CONT.

>>34042898
>>34043255
>Mechanism loads first bullet
And how does the bullet seal the chamber to prevent liquid leaking out of the barrel?
If its recoil operated with a bolt or rod that pushes it into the chamber, you're already as complicated as any traditional rifle and you haven't even sorted out propellant yet.

Similarly, how do you deal with double feeds, failures to fire etc in a sealed chamber. What if its just an ignition failed and you open the chamber and get liquid explosive all over yourself?

> 2 separate tanks under some pressure in you backpack.
1) Liquid is already hard as fuck to compress - its possible but difficult. It will be almost impossible to extract useful work from the pressurisation.

2) You're going to need a pump to keep constant pressure unless you want a substantial ammount of the liquid to not be accessible. As you release liquid, the pressure in the tank, and thus your flow rate decrease. This means increasing lock times with every shot and eventually you're not going to have enough pressure to fill the chamber, even when you do have enough propellant in the tank. These apply even if you have smart injection to compensate for the pressure drop. So you neeed to carry a pump around with you, or some way to tap gas or recoil for repressurisation.

God damn it, CONT.

>>34042898
>>34043259

>2 additional ports for liquid propellant
Imagine what happens when those junk up from carbon or the nozzles are damaged. Gun propellants burn hot and dirty, but you could probably get around the second one. What happens when debris gets into the barrel and chamber? An ICE's combustion chamber is pretty sealed. Yours will routinely have lead and debris as well as combustion products in it.

>In case of zero-g, adequate amount of propellant is spent to make the backblast,
Where does this come from? Do you expect to shoulder this rifle? If so you can't have it come out the back of the rifle. Also have you considered the fact that you need the same momentum not speed to cancel the recoil? So you're going to need to launch something massive (as in off significant mass not colloquially large) out the back.

Its also shouldn't be required, you're not going to get significant dV from your rifle. You also shouldn't be floating around in the open - you should be behind cover, with something to brace yourself against. You should also have a SAFER, which would be more effect to cancel your motion anyway.

>It is really simpler than AK-47, mechanics-wise.
Its really not. Your rifle is far more complicated and far less reliable than basically any service rifle, and its dangerously unsafe to the operator. It doesn't even add any significant benefits except for tailed propellant loads on te fly. I'd rather just carry different ammo.

>>34043050
>flamethrower
I'll give him this. If its stored in 2 tanks, and can only ignite together, its not too bad.

>>34043261
>>34043259
>>34043255
Fuck doing that on a phone. Never again.

>>34043200
I don't think you'd solve climate change so much as replace it with a different kind of climate change

>>34033604
I've never played this game, can I design my ships around keel mounted rail/coil guns? Those are my fetish

>>34035144
>continuously accelerate with 1-3G
Where do you get infinite propellant?

>>34042980
>Can't say Rs
>Call it Rhotacism
>Make them mispronounce their own disorder
Seems cruel. Like the word "lisp"

>>34043348
Only sort of. They only recently implemented internally mounted weapons. They still don't have the capability for components to surround other components, other than things that are mounted on the hull. It's pretty dumb.

>>34043363
Unfortunate. It seems up my alley, i'll probably buy it when i can design ships around weapons like i want to. Idk if giant spinal mount railguns are the best weapon, but they sure are the sexiest

>>34043192
>So you shoot when you have a firing solution that you can trust is not a waste of ammo
Well done, you summed what I meant to say in my first post.

>>34043261
>If its stored in 2 tanks, and can only ignite together, its not too bad.
Because having a 3000+ PSI loaded bottle explode in your back isn't an issue anymore?

>>34043652
Eh, I was being nice. If you're in a spacesuit, with rifle plates, in a vacuum, its not quite as bad as literal explosives on your back.

You can't really pressurize liquids usefully anyway. Not how he's talking about anyway.

>>34043717
By pressurized, it is meant, that you have to apply pressure, for liquid to get into dispenser. Be it mechanical pump, or literally squeezing from the tube, it doesn`t matter. And I don`t know where that guy imagine 3000+ PSI from.

>>34043259
>>And how does the bullet seal the chamber to prevent liquid leaking out of the barrel?

That one is simple. Piston. Bullet is in front of piston. explosive solution is injected into sealed chamber behind the piston. After explosion, gases push piston, piston pushes bullet. When barrel ends, gases are vented backward, to provide momentum compensation, and piston moves backward, to let another bullet into the chamber. Bubbleless underwater guns operates more or less this way. No jams, no double feed.

>>34042818
Exactly, need those mars factories intact. Why fight over a void filled with nothing?

>>34043855
>And I don`t know where that guy imagine 3000+ PSI from
Yeah I was a bit optimistic on the pressure. (I used compressed air as a reference, which is stupid)
See pic related, CO2 at 25°C becomes liquid under ~1000PSI
>By pressurized, it is meant, that you have to apply pressure, for liquid to get into dispenser
So you plan to keep your backpack at -50°C max everytime you need your rifle? It's more efficient to apply pressure to liquify gases (excepted for diazote-type gases) than to reduce it's temp.

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>>34044149
Forgot pic

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Here's my question about laser weapons.
Are these vast distances anons are talking about enough to turn laser weaponry into more of an energy whip if they end up having to readjust their aim while firing? Or would the laser weaponry be pulsed/intermittent?

>>34044398
I mean... it's possible. It'd obviously need to be a VAST distance for that effect to occur, but it could happen, provided the beam was visible all the way along - which it likely wouldn't be. For light to be visible it needs to be bouncing off a surface, so the beam would need to be travelling through a dust cloud or something similar to be visible.
Unless of course the weapon would use a wavelength influenced by rayleigh scattering, which is a whole different kettle of fish.

how lasers work in atmosphere
is to have a weaker trace laser find its way though the thinnest part of the air
then when the main laser is fired it has a path to follow

but what ever is in space (its not a perfect vacuum) is pretty thin and does not effect the coarse of much
the problem will be that the sheer distance might cause the laser to bloom because of quantum effects
and just that the wave length will get longer the more time is spends travelling
there is also gravity lensing to consider

but there is not really much going on irl
https://www.universetoday.com/106624/the-challenges-of-lasers-in-space/

>>34042392
Welfare.

>>34043169
They are good, but are shit next to NPP.

>>34043352
>Where do you get infinite propellant?
no need nuclear propulsion is awesome you can bring enough fuel mass for a few years with fusion for a few hundred.

>>34033212
Missiles at long range Typically gets stonewalled against point defense but you can overwhelm point defense with enough missiles.
Lasers shoot down missiles and anything without armor
Railguns kill everything at close range but useless against anything outside effective range.

Battles come in two types, Fly-bys and intercepts.

A fly by is two fleets getting close to each other but are still in WAY different orbits\courses. Fly-by have ships passing maybe 10 km from each other at INSANE speeds. Think maybe 40 km/s. That's per second, not per hour. Think of it as a Drive By with Cannons but due to Newtons First Law you can't stop even if you die.

An Intercept is two fleets merging orbits\courses. These tend to be longer and more drawn out as you're going to be mostly motionless relative to your enemy. Much more of a slugging match until someone decides to run or dies.

Also, keep in mind that you can't really "Sink" a spaceship. You can blow one up, smash it into little pieces, and sometimes set it on fire but unless you've destroyed every weapon, engine, and radio a warship in space is still a threat.

>>34043401
problem with railguns is they are extreme energy hogs also weight a shitton have a serious recoil and also build up shittons of heat can fire relatively infrequently because of capacitor banks (also very mass intensive).

first stage chemical boosters on the other hand: can fire almost all your missiles in a single salvo with a vertical launch layout that means a few hundred shots in a few seconds, and they accelerate in a few seconds to the same velocity your railgun would anything of the same mass. and if your railgun does not fire cruise missiles then it's literally useless. you can do like 11km/s with a huge railgun as initial velocity but it would take forever a projectile to reach anything in space and any missile would quickly outpace it by magnitudes. it would never catch up to ships for that matter if they choose to run away sooner rather than later you will run into your own shells.

>>34043352
>Where do you get infinite propellant?

If you want to talk about warships you have to assume we've solved how to power it for extended periods of time.

>>34044746
>Lasers shoot down missiles and anything without armor
if you put a 20cm conical aluminum cap at a steep angle in the top of your missile it would take for minutes by gigawatt lasers or realistic spread to get past by lasers and point defense would only have seconds at relativistic speeds. laser point defense will probably be worthless against anti-ship missiles coming up front.

>>34033707
Would cost less though as we can gather resources in numbers we have not seen yet. And also they will be built in space reducing cost further.

Cones, drones, missiles and rail guns everywhere.

>>34044746

Too much Coade posting

> anything without armor

Anything without armor will get fucked heavily by even a .22 mm railgun.

> you can overwhelm point defense

Something I have to try(and still can't because I lack the time and patience) is to see if CoaDE lets me send two different fleets of missiles into the same enemy orbit, but one going from the opposite direction.

It would be a pain in the ass to coordinate, but I'm sure its awesome.

>Also, keep in mind that you can't really "Sink" a spaceship.

Yes you can, when you destroy its engine or their radiators they are as good as dead.

If you manage to hit through the armor into the crew compartment, fuel storage or powerplant you get the same effect(although is much harder, this must be the equivalent of a headshot in space combat)

>>34044800


At relativistic speeds you can even use stones to destroy small moons.

>>34040010
It would be easier to have an independent system for cooling the weapons and engines that's not tied to life support. You want to be able to run the guns and engine hot and don't want to cook the crew when you do.

>>34044800
>20cm
effective thickness

>>34044818
not quiet you would need a hell of a big stone, but 10% c is not nearly hard to achieve by a fission torch missile. any ship it hits will be gone, and point defense must put some mass in it's path or it's getting past it.

i guess we need to work on that phalanx a little bit more.

>>34044806
>Anything without armor will get fucked heavily by even a .22 mm railgun.
you are not getting close enough for that and railguns are useless because in the few hours it takes to reach the enemy he would have already moved.

>>34044856

The point is that even your weakest weapon will easily destroy your ship since many things on it are very delicate specially the big pressurized propellant tanks that will probably receive the impacts.

But after CoaDE railguns might lack the range of missiles and instantaneous impact of lasers but I have seen people making coilguns with monstruous speeds and range, even further from the gigawatt laser.

So I get what you say(in fact around the 1950 some submarine captain said exactly the same), railguns are for flybys when you have the advantage in armor, but I wouldn't underestimate them so easily.

>>34044840
>>34044856

Whups, let me fix the answer.

>>34044840

The point is that even your weakest weapon will easily destroy your ship since many things on it are very delicate specially the big pressurized propellant tanks that will probably receive the impacts.
>>34044856

But after CoaDE railguns might lack the range of missiles and instantaneous impact of lasers but I have seen people making coilguns with monstruous speeds and range, even further from the gigawatt laser.

So I get what you say(in fact around the 1950 some submarine captain said exactly the same), railguns are for flybys when you have the advantage in armor, but I wouldn't underestimate them so easily.

>>34044856
to expand on this: anything less than a light-second will be "close range combat" by space warfare. but to use railguns effectively you need extreme close range of a hundredth of light-second. it takes 270 seconds or 4.5 minutes for the railgun projectile to hit the target at that range, with 10m/s^2 the enemy ship will have accelerated away at a random direction from it's previous trajectory by 1300m/s probably about 2km away, but you can assume it takes time to turn the ship and fire up the drive maybe detection reaction times and you can fire all around it's projected path to increase likelihood of hits. so maybe who knows at that range you can get lucky. but you will get rekt by a missile from several light-minutes away normally.

>>34044912
>but I have seen people making coilguns with monstruous speeds and range
yes but again if it's unguided you still won't hit crap.

>>34042680
They aren't. I mean, sure they'll deal damage but they're also flawed as tactical weapons.

The directional nuke would still need to get close to the enemy to make a kill. Not WW2 torpedo range close but maybe less than 100km. You'll need to content with point defense lasers. They might not destroy the warhead outright but if they can destroy the sensors that aim the shot that would be enough.

Bomb pumped lasers would have an entirely different issue with not getting the sustained output to pierce armor. Sure, you can vaporize the armor but the burst is so short you can only burn the outermost layer of armor. If there's any spacing or ablative layers then you're not doing much damage. Yes, there's radiation but unless you get a perfect hit on the crew compartment through the rad shielding it's all for naught.

There's also an issue with close in fighting. Any nuclear powered weapon has a minimum range and can't be fired in volleys (fratricide issues). If an enemy catches you offguard they can be too close to shoot at. If there's enough opponents they can eat the losses and overwhelm you with kinetic kill missiles.

>>34042957
It would actually be better to use diamond armor.

Yes, diamonds are expensive but they're also thermally conductive, transparent, refractive, and have high heat capacity and melting point.

Children of the Dead Earth v1.1.1 torrent where?

>>34044949

I have seen that space warfare can actually be really close if you equal your orbit with the enemy and then retrograde, making a fly by of mere 10 seconds but going so fast that the enemy weapons have problems reaching you.

And 10 seconds can be enough to fuck things up in the enemy with your cheaper fleet.

>>34033212
Projectile weapons. Ever heard of a thunderwell?

>>34044978
they can just fire missiles on the same orbit and rekt you before a single pass tho.

>>34044746
>Missiles at long range Typically gets stonewalled against point defense but you can overwhelm point defense with enough missiles.

Wouldn't missiles just be designed around a fragmentation effect so that by the time they're in range for interception, they can detonate and send a cloud of shrapnel at the enemy covering any possible change in vector?

>>34045000

Well, if you can't defend from missiles then you have worse problem.

But yes, I remember I employed exactly that tactic to overcome the missile defenses of the enemy (and the enemy couldn't sent missiles back) so their point defenses got obliterated easily because they couldn't react.

>>34045028
well effective projectile ciws range is well in the range a nuclear missile can be detonated to effect. and lasers simply don't have the time to wear away missiles coming in that fast. lasers need time to work as the ionize a surface they get partially blocked hitting the same vapor again and again until pushing it away. they also create immense heat if powerful enough so you can't pack too many on a ship and operate at once or you get thermal exhaust.

>>34045040
what do you use for missile point defense in that game?

>>34035756
This seems realistic honestly.

Engagements being cold war type arm flex until one side gives.

Sucks I wont see the next 800 years

>>34044800
That's basically armor but besides the point. You don't necessarily need to destroy the missile, just disable it. Destroying the sensors or control systems would be enough. >>34044806

>Anything without armor will get fucked heavily by even a .22 mm railgun.

lasers would hit at longer ranges, though.

>Yes you can, when you destroy its engine or their radiators they are as good as dead. If you manage to hit through the armor into the crew compartment, fuel storage or powerplant you get the same effect(although is much harder, this must be the equivalent of a headshot in space combat)

Not necessarily. A missile launcher could be torn free from the ship and could still fire it's payload on the last settings it was loaded with. Even if you knock off all the radiators the enemy could extend more or just push to the limits of the heat sink. Destroying the powerplant would hurt but unless the secondary explosions fried all the internals you might have a shot or two left for the railguns in the capacitors. Loss of fuel storage is bad but as long as there's nearby allies still mobile it's a temporary issue.

>>34045028
fragmenting at laser intercept ranges would mean you're basically missing.

>>34045056
Missiles are rendered as their own ships so you're free to shoot them with whatever weapons you've got on hand.

>>34041967
Bomb-pumped lasers also become an option as either a mine or offensive weapon (if you can speed them up to an appreciable % of c) as it allows you 'focus' the nuclear charge.

>>34041904
About the best you could realistically do is 93% c. After that you start to hit a wall where the mass of the propulsion increases by enormous orders of magnitude. But even detecting something going at 93% c isn't giving you much warning. You'd see it coming but if it's a planet that's a target they've already taken it's location into consideration. You can try to destroy the projectile but then you make one relativistic piece of death into a bunch and cause an enormous release of energy upon collision.
Relativistic weapons are really the end-all be-all of warfare given our understanding of physics. That may change in the future but I doubt it.

>>34041043
And this happens in the first 20 pages of the book. Oh boy does it get worse.

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>>34044149
>>So you plan to keep your backpack at -50°C max everytime you need your rifle?
And why would that be? Do you think, it`s extremely hard to create a liquid propellant, usable at room temperature? IIRC, even modern examples are quite usable (but mostly, toxic).

>>34045056

Everything that is a weapon in the game can be used to stop missiles.

You can use missiles to destroy other missiles, drones, lasers, railguns, nuke cannons, coilguns... everything.

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>>34043261
>>Where does this come from? Do you expect to shoulder this rifle? If so you can't have it come out the back of the rifle. Also have you considered the fact that you need the same momentum not speed to cancel the recoil? So you're going to need to launch something massive (as in off significant mass not colloquially large) out the back.
What is recoilless weapon. Also, see >>34045208
Plus, it is idiotic to shoulder gun in vac suit, because you can`t aim conventionally.
>>34043255
>>You can field strip an AK in a space suit, you could remediate all major malfunctions you could do here on Earth.
I really hope you can do that in picrelated. And no, gloves won`t be any smaller.

>>34033572
>apparently this fictional technology in show is actually based off of scientific theory

They're not at all. There are some fictional equations floating around that explicitly don't make sense. They're a conceit to allow WWII-style dogfights with giant robots, not an extrapolation of real physics.

>>34045095

>lasers
>CIWS

>implying missiles won't have ceramic nose cones and inertial guidance

laserfags, I swear.

>>34033212
here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvs_f5MwT04

>>34045469
Don't need to destroy the missile, just disable it's sensors or steering.

>>34045227
obviously technically can, but most of these will not be able to engage a missile coming in at speed. you got 1-2 sec from detection to detonation range realistically. missiles will come in at relativistic speeds and cold only firing up their thrusters for last second maneuvering or aiming these last stage motors will put out the same g almost as your defensive missiles can, so that's not gonna help. turreted stuff needs to be extremely lightweight to engage them in time lasers will not do shit.

Any combat spacecraft would probably be robots, humans can't take too many g's and you can shed a lot of weight when you don't need life support

Space combat if it ever happens will be primarily extremely small ships hurling extremely dense objects at planets that are millions of kilometers away. Ship to Ship combat will never actually happen.

>>34045784
you can guide the payload missiles in with a lagging missile that does the target acquisitions and plots and provide them target data. the payload missiles can be literally blind and pretty dumb.

>>34045805
in theory humans can take up to 30-35G that's good enough for a space fighter 6 fast attack craft. drones can take 200G easily tho. big ships probably under 5G and even that sparsely.

>>34045814
>you can guide the payload missiles in with a lagging missile that does the target acquisitions and plots and provide them target data

This gives you two new problems. First is obvious, the lagging missile being shot by lasers and also being blinded.

Second is that it's pretty hard to determine precisely which way a missile is aimed from behind. It's a bit like driving a remote control car from an actual car. Your first warning that something is off is when it runs off in the wrong direction.

Finally, there's still an issue of taking out the steering. Rocket fuel is explosive and lasers burn. Destroying a control thruster is less likely to shut it down and more likely to make it explode. An explosion on something so lightweight could throw it into a spin and without all control thrusters it's not likely to recover.

That being said, lasers are power hungry furnaces that just happen to create coherent light so you could probably overwhelm them with enough missiles.

>>34045799

Thats a scenario very similar to the proliferation of ICBMs in the cold war; fast, massed, somewhat cheap, destructive and very hard to take down.

So the world knew that it needed a way to defend themselves from superdestructive weapons of mass destruction that reached orbit to destroy their targets, the solution? They filled everything with sensors, made answers as fast as humanly possible by taking out a lot of bureaucracy and centralizing desition making and designing their strategic assets to be as wide, redundant, distributed and protected as posible(not exactly mobile, although the soviet did invest in mobile ICBMs).

So since no one would say "they have relativistic weapons lets not do war anymore" I bet this will mean many changes:

>No military spaceships except those for invading belterniggers and protecting the main group or whatever will be called in the future.
>Filling the solar system with telescopes as early warning systems.
>Resort to spionage war to always have the upperhand in case of MAD scenario
>Develop counter relativistic defenses similar to "hit-to-kill" weapons, and shift the balance again.
>Have a strong diplomatic corpse to deal with proliferation of factions/nations/hipercorporations(again whatever it is in the future) of relativistic weapons and keep intense diplomatic relations with those that already do.

This time is more serious, nukes can make some part of the planet inhabitable for minimum a few days, but relativistic weapons can be expected to create volcanoes, alter the rotation of the celestial body and reduce the numbers of satellites of greedy planets like Saturn.

>>34045951
>First is obvious, the lagging missile being shot by lasers and also being blinded.
it will be out of range mong that's the point the ciws will prioritize the closest threat anyhow.

>Second is that it's pretty hard to determine precisely which way a missile is aimed from behind.
uhm no there is no difficulty there the only difficulty is the lag in communication that is a consequence of the guidance missile being out of effective range of ciws.
>Finally, there's still an issue of taking out the steering.
you can't really do that from the front that's my point. if a missile is coming at you all you can shoot is the armored dome.

>>34046233
>it will be out of range mong that's the point the ciws will prioritize the closest threat anyhow.

Not really a thing in space. We can bounce lasers off retroreflectors on the moon.

>uhm no there is no difficulty there the only difficulty is the lag in communication that is a consequence of the guidance missile being out of effective range of ciws.

If you're out of laser range then you're not close enough to get good sensor resolution on the target.

>you can't really do that from the front that's my point. if a missile is coming at you all you can shoot is the armored dome.

You'd need to lead the shot for a missile. This gives them an angle at the side of it.

>>34044972
Or phenolic resin as ablative protection. Or even cork: that's used in spacecraft re-entry shielding. Or the ceramics used on the space shuttle tiles. Laser protection is easier than one might think (with current laser power output).

>>34046675
>You'd need to lead the shot for a missile. This gives them an angle at the side of it.

yeah this. missiles don't go directly towards a target, they go to where the target will be.

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Obviously it'll be exactly like ww2.

>>34045784

>just disable it's sensors or steering

Missiles could be guided inertially with course corrections sent by Li-Fi to a rearward-facing receiver. The missile body and thrusters could be easily shielded by ceramic tiles.

Of course at some point CIWS will be able to stop the missile, but given the above all you would have to do is tailor the explosion to launch an unavoidable cone of ball bearings at the target. The more effective CIWS is, the larger the missile has to be (or the larger the volume of missiles) to blanket an area of space accounting for all possible changes in vector.

You would simply keep increasing the size or number of missiles until the level of saturation needed to ensure destruction of the target can be achieved from the distance at which CIWS only just becomes effective.

>>34045951

>It's a bit like driving a remote control car from an actual car.

That's almost exactly how we use Predator drones.

>>34047184
>Missiles could be guided inertially with course corrections sent by Li-Fi to a rearward-facing receiver.

I covered this. At these kinds of distances you'd lack the sensor resolution (either radar or infrared) in order to guide the missile to target.

>but given the above all you would have to do is tailor the explosion to launch an unavoidable cone of ball bearings at the target. The more effective CIWS is

Against an armored target, fragmentation is essentially an admission of defeat, settling for external damage rather than a penetration.

Additionally, reckless use of fragmentation weapons can make a region of space hazardous for decades. See Kessler Syndrome

>You would simply keep increasing the size or number of missiles

You'd want to go with quantity over quality as a too large missile would be practical to shoot down with another missile.

>That's almost exactly how we use Predator drones.

Not quite, predator drones have cameras attached to them so the pilot can see what the drone is doing.

Infact, the MQ-1 Predator has been carrying cameras longer than it's been carrying missiles.

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>>34033212
Give some parameters.
Drives, Weapons, Sensors, Durability and Defenses.

It all depends how how your propulsion systems work and how scalable they are. For example High specific impulse low accelerations mean one way to fight. Effective evasion means another. The ability to put drives in small craft or missiles and range to travel to a engagement.

What kind of weapons do you have have. Missile, energy weapons, rocks? Direct fire or indirect fire?

How detectable are enemy ships, vehicles, weapons?

Durability Battleships or thin walled tin cans?

Defenses. SF shield tech or point defense with lasers or gun systems. Electronic warfare?

>>34033212
long rang guided munitions.

and lots and lots of anti long range guided munitions weapons..

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>>34044736
>>34044797
>thinks fuel = propellant
Nogs spotted

Even with nuclear or fusion power, you still need mass to excite with your reactor so you can move forward.
Newton's third law is a bitch, it doesn't matter how many niggawatts you're pumping out, it's not going to move your ship forward without mass to propel out the back of your ship.
THAT is what propellant is.

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>>34044398
It would actually be more like spraying with a watergun, in that there's a bunch of different jolts out of line with each other instead of a stream.

Pulsed lasers is just a way of saying 'high-power, low duration' because all lasers are 'pulsed' in that they are all composed of EM radiation (light) which itself occurs in waves, or, frequency.
A laser beam is just a bunch of very tightly bunched photon waves that gives the illusion of being a contiguous beam.

tl;dr
no laser whip, only laser supersoaker

>>34045063
>lasers would hit at longer ranges, though.

>range

>in space

hate to break it to you anon, but unless there's something in it's path, that bullet will go just as far as a laser, just not as fast. Given we refer to it as SPACE, it probably will.

>>34035808
That's like asking why they don't put telescopes on submarines. Yes we can see far but you have to know where to look. You can't just check every corner of the universe manually. Plus they could be hiding or have a dark coloured spaceship so it's hard to see. Also if we have space weapons they are going to have some sort of protection against it, even if they can't completely stop it they will have armour of some sorts. Also depending on how far we go the speed of light could be a factor meaning anything you shoot they will have a long time to move out of the way. That means you will have to get close enough to actually reliably hit your target.

>>34047737
>fly into rock
>somehow push yourself off the rock with like a spring or something
>fly away from rock faster
genius

>>34035863
Space isn't a complete vacuum. Nowhere is a complete vacuum. It's like absolute zero you can't actually get to it but you can get close. So maybe there is only a particle every hundred kilometres but there is still particles. But because there is so little drag you can go really far. That being said they would have to be automatic drones because manual would be too slow over Super far distances if it even reaches them. No pilots sitting light years away.

>>34043245
I think this is one of the better answers in this thread

>>34048290
You are Technically true but Conclusively wrong.

Yeah, a bullet will keep going as far as a laser and possibly even farther due to dispersion issues.

However, the bullet will take so damn long that the target would have changed course long before. Add in issues with mechanical tolerances and I doubt you'd be shooting at more that 100-200 km.

...unless you're trying to shell a planet or something in which case you could take pot shots from the next planet over or something.

>>34043245
>>34048481
Adding my support to this statement.

>>34043931
That is way more complicated than a traditional rifle, and you're still wasting a huge amount of energy.

First - Have you seen the size of the shells/cartridges used in recoilless weapons? They require multiple times the propellant to counter the recoil. They're heavy, energy inefficient and expensive for what they do.

Second- how do you slow that piston down? Its going as fast as the bullet is and its captive. And how does it reset? Jesus Christ and I thought the gun was dangerous before.

>>34045256
First, see above wrt to recoilless weapons.

Remember that while you do need conserve momentum, you're mass is ridiculously large compared to a rifle round. If you mag dumped an M-16, you'd still only have a velocity of about 0.5m/s or about 1/3 of walking speed.

Also remember that being in space doesn't mean that you can neglect cover. You're not going to float across the void between ships like in Moonraker, because all that will happen is your enemy will mow you down from cover like a charge on a WW1 machine gun nest. If you're behind cover, you can easily use it to brace yourself.

SAFER and its derivatives is also a thing and a much better use of mass than recoilless cartridges. That way you don't need to waste dV when firing if you don't have too, the dV is more efficient, and you're already wearing a MMU anyway.

Also if you read the original post in the chain, it was for all purpose weapons, not just fighting in open space (because very little of that would actually happen).

And yes, you can field strip an AK in those gloves. I know because I got to try it in a vacuum test rig built around a surplus pair of russian Orlan space suit gloves. That's why I used that specific example.

>>34044801
Which is what he said?

>>34045809
How do you defend your planet from dense objects being thrown at you then?

>>34045487
If you're going to do a low effort post, at least don't do a low effort duplicate post >>34033928

>>34047535
Not that anon, but Kessler Syndrome only applies to orbits and fragments in orbit. Its very unlikely that anyone is ever going to encounter fragments from a space battle ever again. Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is

>>34049398
>Not that anon, but Kessler Syndrome only applies to orbits and fragments in orbit. Its very unlikely that anyone is ever going to encounter fragments from a space battle ever again. Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is

Why would you be fighting over empty space? It's strategically useless and you can easily assess the enemy's strength and choose to refuse battle if you're overmatched. Fighting near a planet or moon is more likely since you can use it to hide things and base resources.

>>34049134
What about a gyrojet?
>ywn be a real space marine.
>ywn use a real bolter.
Being a retired Marine this shit hurts.

>They haven't seen true space combat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIHSxLYzc6Q

Fucking kiddies.

>>34049930
>what are trade routes and stakes in asteroid fields

Drones will be possible, but due to the political environment, people will still be hired for warfare in order to thin the population and to create jobs.

>>34049930
Interception, Lagrange points, cargo/logistics, etc.

>>34050026
>Gyrojet
Actually not a bad idea. Gyrojets don't heat up the barrel a lot, they're light af, and the wind won't affect accuracy in space.

You'd still need to improve the "muzzle" velocity still though, which was its primary problem here on Earth. You need to be able to shoot people closer than 5m.

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>>34049134
>>First - Have you seen the size of the shells/cartridges used in recoilless weapons?
Its about third or fourth post on this topic. You do not want "shells" or "cartriges" on your space gun. Propellant is stored separately.

>> They require multiple times the propellant to counter the recoil. They're heavy, energy inefficient and expensive for what they do.

You have to compensate momentum any way. You will spend the SAME amount of propellant (or even MORE, because you will be using cold gas thrusters, with lower exhaust speed). Using weapon with built in "compensator" is more efficient.

>>Second- how do you slow that piston down? Its going as fast as the bullet is and its captive. And how does it reset?
I am no gun specialist, but if it was done allready, there is a way. As for reset, my guess, when gases are venter, spring will do.

>>Remember that while you do need conserve momentum, you're mass is ridiculously large compared to a rifle round. If you mag dumped an M-16, you'd still only have a velocity of about 0.5m/s or about 1/3 of walking speed.

The problem is, this velocity change, won`t be directed through your center of mass, even if you shoulder the gun correctly. That mean, you won`t slow down. You will spin, and do that uncontrollably. Space shuttle have rediculously huge mass, compared to the gas of maneuvering thrusters. However, it is oriented, using those tiny vents.

>>Also remember that being in space doesn't mean that you can neglect cover.

That`s exactly the thing, why "space boarding" won`t happen. Most "space infantry warfare" you can expect, is rare mop up operations onboard of allready disabled stations/ ships, and slightly more common mop up missions on low gravity planetoid surface.

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>>34051090
CONT.

>>And yes, you can field strip an AK in those gloves. I know because I got to try it in a vacuum test rig built around a surplus pair of russian Orlan space suit gloves. That's why I used that specific example.

Not that I distrust you, but that really hard to imagine. No, I guess, you can remove the dust cover and, possibly, perform some basic disassembly, but assembling it back in a working state... Well, I admire Russian engineering even more now.

>>34033572
>apparently this fictional technology in show is actually based off of scientific theory from my understanding
No, it's not. That's called a "plot device." It's not real, it has no basis in reality, it's just a hand wave toward making the in-universe technology play nice with real-world doubt.

Writers do it all the time, I had to re-write my stuff to cut that out.

>>34033212
>>34033219
>>34033405
>>34033604
And others I'm not bothering to quote since it's pretty much the same.

This is all assuming that some technology doesn't completely change the game. I hate to say it but FTL really isn't completely out of left-field, and neither is some "stealth" shenanigans. These things would, if true, become the pivotal focus and dominate everything from ship design to strategic doctrine.

At this point all the speculation around "well what would space combat look like" is just too damn vague. What are we talking about? Suborbital bombers is vastly different than interplanetary slugging matches, and really, if it happens with existing weapons technology then it's going to turn into "who has the most armor and point-defense."

>>34033997
Radiation sucks in space, so lasers could be easily defeated by ablative material (almost universally feather light by the way) supported by posts or lattice made out of material that's a poor thermal conductor. (which is probably going to be more of your ablative material)

That space in between is not going to transfer heat worth a damn.

>>34035808
>Wehave telescopes that can detect things literally on the edge of the observable universe
... Billions of years ago. Welcome to space-time, it's nature is in the name. Regardless, unless you're literally watching everywhere, and I mean everywhere, at all times, using a variety of methods, you simply cannot have a "no stealth in space" scenario. You can have a "stealth is much harder in space" scenario, but then again the absolute best stealth aircraft aren't "invisible" anyway.

>>34034988
>valuable
You have no idea just how much metal, carbon, and water there is just floating around our solar system.

After we have started to mine space and have had orbital colonies for a few decades, you'll see.
Colonies must be more than self sufficient, so it'll only be a matter of time before some uppity nigger ruins one of them with communism or space islam, and then we will either agree not to missile each other's colonies and use space craft to wage war, or solve the problem and kill at least one and a half colonies.

>>34051284
>you simply cannot have a "no stealth in space" scenario.
You're options are basically all optical though. We have materials that absorb 99.99985% of light, so you're gonna be stuck to kepler magic.
And kepler magic can be defeated with noise.

>>34051090
>You do not want shells or cartriges
You still need all that extra propellant, mate. Even if you store it as a liquid in tanks instead of in brass cases, you still need it. Recoilless guns are incredibly propellant inefficient.

>center of mass
>spin
Well first I want to ask how you're going to use a recoilless rifle, while still keeping recoil in line with your center of mass. I should point out that recoilless rifles, despite their name aren't perfectly recoilless either.

Secondly, if you want it to always be along your center of mass you're going to be like a casemate tank, but worse. You'd literally have to use your MMU to maneuver for every shot. You'd be incredibly slow compared to anyone with a conventional rifle, and there are already ways to get around not being able to get a cheek-weld on a rifle (you can still shoulder it). Slow means dead in almost every battlefield.

> You will spend the SAME amount of propellant
>Using weapon with built in "compensator" is more efficient.
Even hooking up the propellant tanks to your MMU is a better idea. You'll already be wearing one, so you don't need to waste mass and system complication on building a "thruster" in your rifle.

There will also be times where the recoil doesn't need to be cancelled, like when you can brace against something, which should be in the majority of firefights because as we both agreed, space doesn't mean you can neglect cover. If you had a recoilless rifle, you're still using all that propellant when you don't need to.

Which leads me to my next point - SAFER has automatic attitude hold. It can automatically arrest rotation. Firing a rifle off center won't always give rotation, but cancel one you already have. By using a recoilless rifle you're spending propellant to cancel a rotation and still have to spend yet more propellant to cancel the opposite, paying twice for what you could get for free.

An MMU and a nonrecoilless rifle is more flexible, faster and more efficient.

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Warning, time sink:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarintro.php

>>34051090
>>34051098
>but if it was done allready, there is a way.
I'd like a link to the gun you think does this to check it out, but also I'd point out that underwater guns use much MUCH slower projectiles and have the water around them to dampen motion.

>"space boarding" won't happen
>rare mop up operations onboard of allready disabled stations/ ships [and on] surface[s].
We are agreed here.

>Not that I distrust you, but that really hard to imagine.
Honestly, it was luck that I got to try it out. It for was an interactive exhibit, I just happened to know the guy that was commissioned to build it, and he knew I was really into space.

Its not easy to manipulate fine things in it (we also tried a rubiks cube and one of those little metal puzzles before we decided to be Soviet Space Soldiers), but its absolutely possible. The AK is designed somewhat for use in heavy gloves but it'd be much easier if you scaled up some of the controls as I said though.

Hardest part was the little lock on the gas cylinder cover because you can't get your nail or anything hard underneath it and it just keeps slipping against the fingertips.

>>34051098
aks field strip pretty easy and straightforward. i can totally imagine it would work. you would need to practice it tho because if you let go anything and drifts away you are fucked.

>>34046675
yes it is the problem is diffusion. even the best coherence in laser we can produce will be utterly useless at space combat ranges. as a close in weapon system it could work but it's range and so it's engagement time is severely limited.
>If you're out of laser range then you're not close enough to get good sensor resolution on the target.
wrong, you are not out of laser range you are out of effective range so the targeting system will prioritize imminent threats you know because of the short window and need to keep a laser on a target for a few secs to have any effect on it.
>You'd need to lead the shot for a missile.
you do that well outside effective range of ciws, set up the spread in the salvo and let them rip straight on. you don't show the side of missiles in the terminal phase period.

>>34050065
>>34050352
Mind, these wouldn't actually be empty space. Lagrange points are orbital points. Asteroids do have their own gravity. Orbital infrastructure would be as vulnerable to shrapnel as any warship. Moreso since they aren't typically armored.

>>34051596
>wrong, you are not out of laser range you are out of effective range so the targeting system will prioritize imminent threats you know because of the short window and need to keep a laser on a

Light is light. The diffusion on the laser is the same as the diffusion degrading sensor resolution at long range.

>>34051892
Neither of those have significant enough gravity to capture fragments at any significant velocities. The escape velocity for the largest asteroid (and a significantly outlier) in the belt has an escape velocity of 300m/s. Not an orbital velocity, an escape velocity.

I'm not even certain you could orbit a lagrange point. Part of me says that yes L4 and L5 are basically like virtual gravity wells so you should be able to but the other part says that as you get further from confluence the gravity wells that create the effect fall out of balance, unlike with a real well.

>>34051898
>Light is light. The diffusion on the laser is the same as the diffusion degrading sensor resolution at long range.
Light is only a fraction of all existing EM waves

>>34035808

They don't see an image like you would while looking through a kodak viewfinder. Observing anything outside of the solar system involves months of data collection and processing.

>>34051375
>>Secondly, if you want it to always be along your center of mass...Even hooking up the propellant tanks to your MMU is a better idea.

Have you seen the image on
>>34045208
?
Because, that`s exactly the idea, I had. Tanks are on MMU, rifle is NOT aligned with center of mass, but compensate the spin, using backblast.

>>34052467
I meant rather than using all the extra propellant you'd need for a recoilless rifle, you pipe said extra propellant directly to the MMU's thrusters.

You'll end up with a much safer, much more efficient and much lighter weapon. Comparatively, its still unserviceable, very complex and fairly likely to explode)

As an aside, is English your first language?

>>34052467
Also have you though about what happens if he has to fire at a target to his right?

Backblast won't have the concussive effect it normally has when in Space, but its still a stream of pressurized burning hot gas.

Even if his MMU didn't come up so high, thats still too close to the shoulders.

>>34035808
We are capable of examining every square inch of the planet earth. There is literally nowhere on this planet that cannot be explored. Does this mean there is no such thing as stealth on earth?

>>34035808
Not even our best telescopes can spot a meteor until it's within dangerous distances of our planet - too close to do anything about it. This is because the light from the sun doesn't reflect on it back to Earth, as it'd be between the Sun and us, its "dark side" would make it nigh invisible to us. Think of how a lunar eclipse works, then apply that to anything that orbits Earth, including anything man-made.

Why do you think there's no actual photos taken down here of all the trash orbiting our planet?

>>34052659
Asteroids are cold. Spaceships are not.

>>34051996
Langrange points are actually orbits using two objects instead of one.

Normally, low gravity asteroids wouldn't have the gravity to hang onto projectiles but fragmentation tends to be horribly unpredictabe. While the cloud of fragments as a whole are traveling at km/s scale, individual fragments could travel far slower than that.

More than that, if you're fighting around a gas giant like Jupiter or even just the moons of Jupiter then you're working with an escape velocity of about 60 km/s

Things get more interesting when you add you're ship's orbital velocity and need to shoot counter orbitally.

>>34052039
true, but that actually works against sensors. Radar and infrared are relatively low frequency bands that disperse easily over distance. Granted, they can slip through all sorts of interference but they won't give you the high intensity output you need for high resolution. You can use lidar but you're then matching visible light lasers range for range.

A laser, on the other hand, can be anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum. Okay, so if it's not light it's technically not a laser but I don't want to confuse people with Masers, Grasers, and Xrasers.

Anyhow, you can use the same system for shooting all these types of coherent electromagnetic waves with a free electron laser. Now at a stunning peak efficiency of 12% and only as big as a small car!

I assure you that this is considered extraordinary for laser efficiency. More to the point, this lets offensive lasers outrange optical and radar sensors.

>>34051574
Magnet plates? Hold your parts on the forearms?

>>34050352
Just use a booster charge, the gyrojet was light as fuck due to it not using a charge like Carl Gustav, and just using it's rocket. And if you want terminal performance go full 40k and have a high-ex core.

>>34053537
To people who aren't uneducated, light is synonymous with EM radiation.

>>34053591
chest would be better imo

>>34052905
spaceships can be pretty damned cold from front even under drive but they can just drift if they want to.

>>34051898
>The diffusion on the laser is the same as the diffusion degrading sensor resolution at long range.
actually they are not even related at any level.
passive sensors don't have the same limitations, and they don't need the same resolution to hit a ships 3km radius then the ship to hit a foot diameter missile.

it's like comparing a catapult to a sniper rifle.

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>>34033572
Fuck off, if we are talking bullshit then there is only one kind of bullshit that we should use
>fleet translates in-system
>immediately charges towards the enemy fleet
>both exchange forward weapons fire, mostly lances and torpedoes
>at the point of contact, start manoeuvering themselves so that they can unleash their full broadsides at point blank range
>shield popping off, debris flying everywhere and reactors going critical and exploding
>fighters buzzing in between, strafing eachother and the ships
>crippled ships ramming each other
>some of the ships fire boarding torpedoes, so that the transhuman soldiers inside can breach the hull and go chainsword the captains head off

>>34051349
>You're options are basically all optical though
>We have materials that absorb 99.99985% of light

I mean I suppose if you squint or something RF is somewhat related to visible light. Well, maybe if you slam back a fifth of vodka and -then- squint.

It's a good thing I wasn't talking about just telescopes. (you would know this if you read my post more carefully)

>>34054400
Passive sensors are limited to low energy infrared and occasional active radar pings.

Ultraviolet light diffuses less over long distances in vacuum. By the time you've pinpointed the target into a shootable volume you're well within ultraviolet laser range.

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>>34047737
>it's not going to move your ship forward without mass to propel out the back of your ship

You're almost correct

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>>34033212
>what would space combat look like
Beating toasters to death with a flashlight.
>what weapons would be used
flashlights
>ship specifications
glorious battleship/carrier hybrids holding the line against an implacable, sinister foe.

>>34036373
>All current sensors are hard capped for military useage by one variable. The speed of light in a vacuum. By the time you've identified a target, they have had an equal amount of time to move.

An equal amount of time to move in the direction they were moving when you saw them. Plus or minus whatever their possible trajectory changes are, given what you know about their mass, engines, fuel, and likely mission.

That defines a bubble of space that they could be in, around their current course since the time of your observation.

The closer they are, the smaller that bubble gets. You launch when your missiles have enough juice to catch up with them wherever they turn out to be, inside that bubble.