SciFi Weapons: Ballistic

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SciFi Weapons: Ballistic

Vanessa Ravencroft

Vanessa Ravencroft 3 years ago

Well since we are talking ship based weapons. We need to look at space combat as well. Firing a weapon is one thing, hitting a target another. A target that moves at sub light speeds ,getting hit by an object fired from an object that moves at same speeds is pretty darn difficult. even the fastest projectile of any known conventional gun would have a hard time catching up, Steering a ship lets say the Battlestar, at 800 km/sec (not all that fast in terms of space distances) would take hours of continuous blasting directional thrusters to get the thing even 5 degrees of course (Space might be weightless, but mass is a bitch and mass momentum a physical law) Space fighters and a course correction of lets say 40 degrees at 1000km/sec.They need only a mop to gather whats left of the pilot. I am taking about a few thousand Gee ,not a measly 9 which a human can survive for a very short time. The most efficient space weapon would be a missile, able to accelerate fast, change course better than a ship (less mass) and with modern AI, linger for month in the target area until an enemy that fits the foe image. (Sort of a space mine), Missiles can be rapidly deployed, and not at direct line of sight. Perhaps even acquire and destroy targets an entire orbit away. The missile would not even need a warhead, accelerate to 80%-90% and the relativistic mass energy brought to bear..calculates in the Megaton region. More missiles launched at once improve the hit probability and a missile that explodes in lets say 5000 billard ball sized balls of lead or uranium all moving at the same momentum can ruin the day of an entire invasion fleet.