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long range laser

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long range laser
Post by feldamar2   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:16 am

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I am resurrecting an old thread of mine about a gravity lens laser. But with a slightly different idea.

There are two reasons that stop a laser from being a long range weapon.

1. it spreads. after even 100,000km it spreads out to roughly 24 meters (i'm AGAIN using someone else's math) becoming useless.

2. its slow. at longer ranges, even light speed isn't fast enough to keep up with hitting a ship that is jinking left and right (and up and down and sideways).

so i propose a system defense laser. a giant gravity lens laser that is wide enough to have very long ranges. at the target though isn't a ship, which is rather hard to hit, but essentially another gravity mirror.

the gravity mirror would not only reflect and concentrate the laser again but be close to the target and reflect the laser at sub light second ranges. with a laser FAR more powerful then normal. so it can pierce the sidewall easily and (borrowing a meme here) cause massive damage.

the technology exists in the universe and is all over. and maybe a satellite or system drone could carry the gravity lens powered down so it is hard to see until the laser is fired its way. then it powers up and reflects the laser at the last second.

as a bonus. this would work well with Moriarty and you could design as powerful of a laser as you want. and a conniving system might put the laser base in close orbit around the planet so the attacking force can't fire at it. (i understand the EE could go down, but I'm optimistic and who knows. maybe it won't)

and please instead of finding ways to shoot the idea down, could we try finding ways for it to POSSIBLY work.
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Re: long range laser
Post by kzt   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:52 am

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You don't need fancy grav lenses. An 8 meter SD graser can do insane damage at a range in excess range of a light week IIRC. It's absurdly deadly against anything in orbit or otherwise in a predictable trajectory if you do the math.

Somehow I suspect this will never make it into the books.
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Re: long range laser
Post by SWM   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:14 pm

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If you can get a drone that close to the enemy, why don't you just put a laserhead aboard it?
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Re: long range laser
Post by Telra   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:41 pm

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SWM wrote:If you can get a drone that close to the enemy, why don't you just put a laserhead aboard it?

Its called Mistletoe......., more or less.....
Well Mistletoe uses only standard nukes, but i see no reason you couldnt add few lasing rods. except the needed space maybe...
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Re: long range laser
Post by Duckk   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:48 pm

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They did use laser heads on Mistletoe, that's how they killed the Moriarty platforms. The plain nuke heads were used for pod sweeping at Lovat.
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Re: long range laser
Post by bafoote   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:55 pm

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Alrighty, SVW's dry sarcasm got 2 posts in response!

NICE!
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Re: long range laser
Post by Duckk   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 1:59 pm

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Sigh, I know exactly what SWM was aiming for, I'm just correcting Telra's misconception regarding Mistletoe. Don't need to be snarky about it.
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Re: long range laser
Post by feldamar2   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:24 pm

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kzt wrote:You don't need fancy grav lenses. An 8 meter SD graser can do insane damage at a range in excess range of a light week IIRC. It's absurdly deadly against anything in orbit or otherwise in a predictable trajectory if you do the math.

Somehow I suspect this will never make it into the books.


i believe there is a problem with that though.
Lasers don't stay concentrated. after a while they spread out and are not concentrated enough to cause damage let alone pierce a SD sidewall.

the idea is that this system allows a FAR more powerful laser then what is on a laser-head or even an SD graser battery to hit a target at long range.

in addition to the fact that if (using the math from my previous blog "gravity lens laser") a laser may have as much power after a light week, but it would be so attenuated and spread out that it wouldn't do a thing except maybe give you a light tan. That is why i have the second mirror in the system. A powerful laser (graser would work better, it would spread out less) would fire and hit the mirror all spread out and useless but then like a magnifying glass to sunlight, since it has a wide lens now, concentrate it into a beam that is less then a SD laser battery width enhancing the damage of it. try reading my previous blog for the math and reasoning behind my thought.
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Re: long range laser
Post by Donnachaidh   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:01 pm

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But isn't that a graser?

feldamar2 wrote:i believe there is a problem with that though.
Lasers don't stay concentrated. after a while they spread out and are not concentrated enough to cause damage let alone pierce a SD sidewall.

the idea is that this system allows a FAR more powerful laser then what is on a laser-head or even an SD graser battery to hit a target at long range.

in addition to the fact that if (using the math from my previous blog "gravity lens laser") a laser may have as much power after a light week, but it would be so attenuated and spread out that it wouldn't do a thing except maybe give you a light tan. That is why i have the second mirror in the system. A powerful laser (graser would work better, it would spread out less) would fire and hit the mirror all spread out and useless but then like a magnifying glass to sunlight, since it has a wide lens now, concentrate it into a beam that is less then a SD laser battery width enhancing the damage of it. try reading my previous blog for the math and reasoning behind my thought.
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Re: long range laser
Post by kzt   » Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:31 pm

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Effectitive range of perfect lasers is directly related to the radius of the beam and inversely related to the wavelength. DW has stated that it's a HUGE emitter and a really, really short wavelength.

To steal a post of mine for the bar:

"You get a Rayleigh length of 5 billion KMs with a 10 picometer soft gama rays. So nominally at 5 billion kms a 8 meter diameter terawatt 10 picometer beam is an 11.4 meter diameter terawatt beam. So instead of a huge 17.3 Gw/m^2 average energy density at few thousand KMs at it's dropped to a measly 8.6 Gw/m^2 at about 4 light hours range."

If you assume that it's 1 picometer wavelength it has LOT more range.
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