23 replies to this topic

[Zero]

Do you think we will ever see Ion Cannons like the one from C&C and how would it work, because I can't figure it out. Another weapon I don't get:Particle Projection Cannons. I mean, when you think about it, it would be a great weapon (although way out of our league.... for now), especially when we start to colonize space, it would make a great defensive weapon.

[partyzanpaulzy]

Why not, when USSR (RASER satellite with nuke reactor) and USA tried during CW ?

[CommanderJB]

Energy weapons in space? Hmm. Not before conventional ones. Rods from God is a much simpler and far more effective weapon; after all, in order to power a satellite that has an energy weapon powerful enough to do equivalent damage you'll either need several football fields' worth of solar panels or a true nuclear reactor. Can I make plain the difference between a nuclear reactor and a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG); a nuclear reactor is the whole shebang with an armoured core, multiple fuel rods, multiple control (reaction moderator) rods with an automated control system, a cooling system (theoretically you could get away with radiator fins in space but it'd sure as hell be difficult to get it to work right) and then an entire separate generator based on (typically) steam heated by the reaction that spins a turbine which uses mangets inside coils of copper wire in order to produce current. Needless to say this is just a tad undesirable for a satellite because no-one's ever come up with one that isn't buried in concrete or generally weighs anything less than several thousand tons.
An RTG on the other hand simply uses the heat from a decaying radioisotope to generate current by thermoelectric couples. The current produced is absolutely tiny when compared to a genuine reactor - on the order of several hundred watts, no where near the kilo- or mega- (or even giga-)watt class devices that are the only feasible directed energy weapons at the moment.
We will amost certainly see energy weapons in space, though an 'ion cannon' certainly wouldn't do anything like what C&C predicts, but we definitely won't see them until they're in common service on the ground because of power requirements.

[markintellect]

Another possibility would be solar reflectors, which would make the light beam smaller and smaller until it could destroy anything. All forms of space weapons would have a massive psychological impact on everyone, as they knew that they would not be safe at all, no matter where they went. Rods From God would be able to penetrate deep into Cheyenne Mountain, for example.

[CommanderJB]

Depending on how big you make the rods; I'd say that a practically sized RFG system wouldn't have that sort of power, and they wouldn't replace strategic nukes, but they probably would replace many tactical ones. Solar reflectors are somewhat unlikely in my opinion as the required size of the reflectors in order to generate a beam that would do any real damage plus the equipment needed to manoeuvre the entire thing to the needed extraordinarily fine degree would necessitate ridiculous financial outlay; when compared with other weapons systems I really don't think it'd be worth the cost. Also keep in mind that such a structure would have to keep focused on a target for a considerable amount of time, meaning it would almost certainly need to be placed in geostationary orbit over the area; as such you'd need a network of these extremely expensive platforms in order to cover a whole theatre, and all in all you'd be better off ordering a missile or airstrike on the location rather than building all them. I'm not saying that it can't be done, just that militaries need to do the most they can with the funds they have, and this wouldn't be the most economical way of dealing with almost any imaginable target.

[tank50us]

In one of the games I'm planning, the good guys (known as the UNDF) develoup a weapon they dub 'MAGie' (Magnetic Accelerated Gun) which is essentially an orbital rail gun that fires 16" tungstun titanium slugs (nicknamed meteorite rounds), and it can put them on a penny in the middle of a highway full of qaurters. Anyway, in the story, the UNDF face the big problem of deploying it, it can't support everyone at once, and the baddies have a bad habbit of attacking UNDF lines when the MAGie is out of geo-sync with the battlefield. And when they do attack while it's in Geo-Sync, it's usually firing non-stop to the point that it starts to heat up, and needs to cool down before another volly can be launched. Add to the fact that only one of the satellites were launched, and you can quickly see just how much of a problem the UNDF has.

[Shirou]

one shot from an orbital railgun would knock the gun itself out of orbit..

And why the hell would you need any device to accelerate the projectiles. In the Rods from God principe you dont need such a big system, as gravity can create enough kinetic energy to make them be very destructive already.

Particle Projection weapons like in ZH are unreal. Particle beams are in essense beams of extreme kinetic energy (particles moving at near light speed). No stupid spacebourne mirror is going to safely send them all straight back to earth. They are not like light beams.

Edited by Aftershock, 26 August 2008 - 17:08.

[partyzanpaulzy]

I have heard Russia tries to use sattelite with giant mirror sheeting to send solar beams to Siberia to improve agriculture (like Global Warming wasn't enough). (their last attempt failed with bad hydraulics). But to use it as weapon it should be more larger, unless you will concentrate beams to one single beam (solar knife from the sky).

Edited by partyzanpaulzy, 26 August 2008 - 17:38.

[Rich19]

Aftershock, on 26 Aug 2008, 18:06, said:

one shot from an orbital railgun would knock the gun itself out of orbit..

And why the hell would you need any device to accelerate the projectiles. In the Rods from God principe you dont need such a big system, as gravity can create enough kinetic energy to make them be very destructive already.

Particle Projection weapons like in ZH are unreal. Particle beams are in essense beams of extreme kinetic energy (particles moving at near light speed). No stupid spacebourne mirror is going to safely send them all straight back to earth. They are not like light beams.

Not necessarily, you just need to attach an identical railgun pointing the opposite way, and have them fire at the same time. But yeah, just having gravity do the work ought to be sufficient...

[Eddy01741]

Aftershock, on 26 Aug 2008, 13:06, said:

one shot from an orbital railgun would knock the gun itself out of orbit..

And why the hell would you need any device to accelerate the projectiles. In the Rods from God principe you dont need such a big system, as gravity can create enough kinetic energy to make them be very destructive already.

Particle Projection weapons like in ZH are unreal. Particle beams are in essense beams of extreme kinetic energy (particles moving at near light speed). No stupid spacebourne mirror is going to safely send them all straight back to earth. They are not like light beams.

WHy would it do that? A railgun is simply using a metal projectile and powering it up to extremely high speeds using magnets (similar to maglev trains), so the newton's third doesn't apply.

You could also use a coil gun (gauss gun), no contact needed (in a railgun, the projectile slides along the two rails), andhas a similar concept (using magnetic forces to propel a projectile).

[Reaper94]

couldnt it be done bhy just firijng a badass laser against a satelite? (my very simple ideea of how it could be done)

CommanderJB, on 22 Aug 2008, 0:05, said:

Energy weapons in space? Hmm. Not before conventional ones. Rods from God is a much simpler and far more effective weapon; after all, in order to power a satellite that has an energy weapon powerful enough to do equivalent damage you'll either need several football fields' worth of solar panels or a true nuclear reactor. Can I make plain the difference between a nuclear reactor and a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG); a nuclear reactor is the whole shebang with an armoured core, multiple fuel rods, multiple control (reaction moderator) rods with an automated control system, a cooling system (theoretically you could get away with radiator fins in space but it'd sure as hell be difficult to get it to work right) and then an entire separate generator based on (typically) steam heated by the reaction that spins a turbine which uses mangets inside coils of copper wire in order to produce current. Needless to say this is just a tad undesirable for a satellite because no-one's ever come up with one that isn't buried in concrete or generally weighs anything less than several thousand tons.
An RTG on the other hand simply uses the heat from a decaying radioisotope to generate current by thermoelectric couples. The current produced is absolutely tiny when compared to a genuine reactor - on the order of several hundred watts, no where near the kilo- or mega- (or even giga-)watt class devices that are the only feasible directed energy weapons at the moment.
We will amost certainly see energy weapons in space, though an 'ion cannon' certainly wouldn't do anything like what C&C predicts, but we definitely won't see them until they're in common service on the ground because of power requirements.

alternatively for power u cld use some of this stuff: http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Antimatter

Edited by Deidara, 26 August 2008 - 19:46.

[The Wandering Jew]

@^:

I see some stumbling blocks in this kind of weaponry.

1. How would be able to send the much-needed energy to space-based weaponry? Transmission cables?

2. How can we construct an anti-matter plant in space?

P.S. I do not use ZOCOM's Ion Cannon. I use the MARV, Hammerheads (a futuristic Ka52 Black Shark, if you ask me), and Firehawks instead.

[Dauth]

Anti matter can only be used as a store f energy (and a pretty inefficient one at that) not a fuel source.

[The Wandering Jew]

Dauth, on 27 Aug 2008, 17:13, said:

Anti matter can only be used as a store f energy (and a pretty inefficient one at that) not a fuel source.

If it is just for storage, then how can we generate massive amounts of energy to power the cannon as a gift for Kane and his Temple Prime? (pun intended)

[Sgt. Rho]

Fusion reactors?

Let me put it simple: Ion cannon = Particle cannon. Just with the difference that a particle cannon fires charged particles, and an ion cannon fires Ion, which are entire cores.

[CommanderJB]

You still need a power source, and you can forget about antimatter. Never mind the fact that it is probably the most expensive thing to produce in the whole entire world (millions of dollars for fractions of a gram) and reacts to its own destruction in microseconds, with no way currently of preventing it from doing so, you also need to get it up there and harness the energy. So the only viable power source would be a huge array of high-efficiency solar cells, and you get a bit vulnerable, and of course it's still astronomically (no pun intended) expensive as you of course have to carry them all up first, then attach them, requiring extremely heavy-lift vehicles at tens of millions of dollars per launch, multiple missions and years of construction. Just look at the ISS.
A satellite mounting MIRVs, conventional warheads with ablative shields (though there would be far more cost-effective ways to get this level of firepower onto the target) or RFG are the only workable space weapon systems I've heard of so far. Any viable orbital energy weapon is in my prediction beyond the reach of modern science for at least another twenty or more years.

[Sgt. Rho]

As I said, fusion or fission reactors...

[CommanderJB]

Didn't I already cover this earlier? They're huge and ridiculously heavy. You simply cannot generate a nuclear chain reaction in space without a combined weight of hundreds of tons of uranium or plutonium fuel, graphite moderator control rods, shielding (even if the satellite is unmanned, you still need to protect components from the effects of neutron bombardment), control gear including hydraulic rams or winches for affecting the position of the control rods, cooling vane arrays (and large ones too as you have to get all the heat out into space). And once you've got a reaction going, you then need to generate power from it, which can only be done effectively with a whopping great steam turbine. They also need refuelling every half year or so, which will be difficult to say the least. And fusion reactors won't be viable even on a very large scale (the easiest) for at least that long, and probably longer. Nuclear reactors in space just don't work. RTGs are the only options for nuclear power, and they provide it on a very small scale.

[Lucid]

nuclear reactors need to be fueled every half-year?!

[Dauth]

Do you think they run on the power of kittens? Fuel is used up and removed

[Eddy01741]

Master_Chief, on 27 Aug 2008, 5:34, said:

Fusion reactors?

Let me put it simple: Ion cannon = Particle cannon. Just with the difference that a particle cannon fires charged particles, and an ion cannon fires Ion, which are entire cores.

An Ion cannon would fire ions, which is any atom that is not neutrally charged (they have more or less electrons than the number of protons, thus making them negatively or positively charged respectively).

[Lucid]

yes, i know reactors need fuel, what i was suprised at was that it would have to be refueled every half year.

[TWPC920]

i think particle cannons, are probably not going to exist for another hundred years... look at the most advanced particle accelerator we have right now... and how big is it? its fricking 27 kilometers in circumference... i doubt that will ever be used in space, putting it on the ground and using a orbital mirror, like Generals... maybe, but that will still take a while to perfect the technology

[CommanderJB]

Well, you can't reflect a particle beam off a mirror to start with... but yes some sort of particle accelerator will probably eventually make its way into a military application and thence eventually into space.