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Post by newageofpower on May 9, 2017 6:38:41 GMT
Could you have dual-mode lasers by removing frequency doublers? Also, missile ships may have light missiles with dedicated atmospheric KKV noses - those can be used in a space engagement, but would not be as good. They could even be a modular warhead, with extra inert mass (and control surfaces?) for atmospheric shielding at the expense of dV. Heavy cannons could similarly have multiple ammo. You could, although my Ce:LLF + Molten Gold spess superweapons still have trash atmospheric efficiency with zero frequency doubling'; I suspect a more conventional Krypton + Argon system might be superior. Orbital modifications are fairly plausible, I mean, given the fabrication implied in CoADE I suspect it may be the norm for every sizable capship (over 5kt) to carry at least 100t of molecular printer for repair purposes and all the large capships (over 10kt) to carry a 500t suite capable of replacing small/medium drones and missiles, albeit very slowly. For guns, I don't see a realistic way for my hyperoptimized 50+km/s railguns to fire a 10kg shell... yeah...
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 9, 2017 7:17:05 GMT
Any weapon used to attack a planet with atmosphere would have to be specialized. KEPs for surface bombardment would be heavy long rod shaped fin stabilized projectiles fired from specialized launchers or guns traveling at 10-20km/s. Any faster and any material would rapidly desintegrate from heating and decelerating forces.
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Post by newageofpower on May 9, 2017 15:55:07 GMT
Actually, we're looking at this the wrong way. Once you clear the defending fleet and orbitals, asteroid diversion time.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 9, 2017 16:04:16 GMT
I find it unlikely that asteroids would be used. If you already took out the orbital defences, you would want to capture the target body. The less damage done to it the better, so precision strikes are more likely than something as destructive as meteors.
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Post by bigbombr on May 9, 2017 16:35:11 GMT
I find it unlikely that asteroids would be used. If you already took out the orbital defences, you would want to capture the target body. The less damage done to it the better, so precision strikes are more likely than something as destructive as meteors. Furthermore, asteroids survive reentry not as well as purpose-made slugs/rods. Asteroids are also easier to deflect with lasers because of their lower density (and many of them contain a lot of water ice). I still think lasers are superior to kinetic's for orbital fire support of ground forces. Destroying hardened bunkers on the other hand, is where heavy kinetics truly shine. Efficiency-wise, either you're fighting on Earth (or Venus or Titan), or the atmosphere is too thin to be much of a concern for lasers. If you're fighting on a place with a thick atmosphere, kinetics are greatly weakened as well. Then you might want to switch to nukes.
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Post by newageofpower on May 9, 2017 18:39:57 GMT
I find it unlikely that asteroids would be used. If you already took out the orbital defences, you would want to capture the target body. The less damage done to it the better, so precision strikes are more likely than something as destructive as meteors. Ground invasion on a highly habitable planet is ludicrously hard without WMDs; say you had 10x my superliners in troops (so 200,000 men)... now try to invade Earth. 200k vs 8bn people. It's going to make Iraq look like a picnic; I don't see a way to capture the infrastructure of a resisting opponent. Asteroid diversion might be cheaper than building a dedicated fleet of bombardment ships. If you've taken out the orbital stuff, it's going to be pretty hard to defend against an asteroid drop.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 9, 2017 18:56:59 GMT
I find it unlikely that asteroids would be used. If you already took out the orbital defences, you would want to capture the target body. The less damage done to it the better, so precision strikes are more likely than something as destructive as meteors. Ground invasion on a highly habitable planet is ludicrously hard without WMDs; say you had 10x my superliners in troops (so 200,000 men)... now try to invade Earth. 200k vs 8bn people. It's going to make Iraq look like a picnic; I don't see a way to capture the infrastructure of a resisting opponent. Asteroid diversion might be cheaper than building a dedicated fleet of bombardment ships. If you've taken out the orbital stuff, it's going to be pretty hard to defend against an asteroid drop. Having dedicated bombardment ships is going to be far cheaper than having to rebuild the infrastructure and industry on an entire planet. Precision strikes against military targets would limit infrastructure/industry damage, thus saving a lot of money and time. These weapons will still technically be WMDs, but on target scales of buildings to city districts instead of cities to continents.
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Post by Rocket Witch on May 9, 2017 19:34:41 GMT
Ground invasion on a highly habitable planet is ludicrously hard without WMDs; say you had 10x my superliners in troops (so 200,000 men)... now try to invade Earth. 200k vs 8bn people. It's going to make Iraq look like a picnic; I don't see a way to capture the infrastructure of a resisting opponent. Asteroid diversion might be cheaper than building a dedicated fleet of bombardment ships. If you've taken out the orbital stuff, it's going to be pretty hard to defend against an asteroid drop. Once you've got space superiority you have free reign to keep bringing more troops and materiel in over the course of... potentially millennia, circumstances depending. This may be ludicrously expensive in terms of both reaction mass expended to move all this stuff around (though some of your container ships using MPDTs seem very efficient and perfect for the job) and actual money, however in principle it is not a matter of difficulty or complexity or high technology, but raw scale of operations. I guess you'd have to move something like the equivalent mass of Ceres to invade Earth, for instance. With that in mind, asteroid diversion into orbit rather than impact, to build those bombardment ships (well, stations really), would be more efficient in the long-term, and a planetary seige leading to ground takeover could be very long term.
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Post by bigbombr on May 9, 2017 20:16:25 GMT
Am I the only one thinking that once you've achieved orbital superiority, the easiest and most cost-effective way to cause an enemy surrender is by sustained bombardments/siege by a laser weapon web you've build around their planet? Just start by taking out orbital assets, followed by aircraft (fragile and thin-skinned), followed by the radar, sensor and communication equipment of ground forces (their most fragile components and their destruction prevents the opposition from firing ASAT missiles accurately). After that, you can target infantry and the fragile parts of infrastructure (like above-ground power lines, PV-panels, ...) for demoralization purposes. This way, you can, if need be, bring them back to the stone age with minimal expense and without using WMD's.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 9, 2017 20:45:22 GMT
Nukes and KEPs will be more effective than lasers for ground attack. Atmospheric interference reduces efficiency of laser to much. Another problem with lasers, is that countermeasures like smoke become effective further reducing efficiency. For high cross-sectional density projectiles at 10-20km/s, energy loss due to atmosphere is negligible and nothing short of a mountain will stop it.
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Post by thorneel on May 9, 2017 21:07:43 GMT
How hard planetary invasions are depends on many factors, winning could go from shooting a few satellites and beaming dank war memes to having to drop the Moon on it while defending your own assets against RKV swarms. What are your goals? What are theirs? What are your respective resources?
Maybe striking a few key military targets will be enough to break their ability to resist and make them concede to your demands. Maybe you only need to decapitate the ground army and your field agents will seize the occasion to topple the wildly unpopular government with a carefully prepared "spontaneous uprising". Maybe you need to beak most of their space and ground-to-space installations, industry, ground army/navy and once they are back to the stone age and reliant on you to have something to eat and wear, control them with a giant drone police force. Maybe you need to spend years to hunt underground bunkers and exterminate any single individual with extreme prejudice. Maybe you cannot invade and should instead bombard the Moon with hypervelocity impactors (for example deflected retrograde asteroids) to break giant fragments from it and make them fall to Earth, in order to make sure the top kilometre of the crust has been turned back to magma.
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Post by bigbombr on May 10, 2017 5:53:00 GMT
Nukes and KEPs will be more effective than lasers for ground attack. Atmospheric interference reduces efficiency of laser to much. Another problem with lasers, is that countermeasures like smoke become effective further reducing efficiency. For high cross-sectional density projectiles at 10-20km/s, energy loss due to atmosphere is negligible and nothing short of a mountain will stop it. Lasers are cheaper for sustained bombardement (think years of near continuous operation). Losses because of diffraction can be mitigated by picking a suitable frequency and offset by raw power. Shipping in a few tons a year of fissiles and spare parts is cheaper than if you had to ship in that in addition to ammunition. If you have a lasernet in orbit, you can strike anywhere, anytime. The opposition can't continuously deploy smoke at all important assets. Smoke also doesn't work well with aircraft and missiles in flight. Lasers are the most cost-effective for blinding and crippling the enemy, kinetics and nukes for destroying hardened positions.
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Post by The Astronomer on May 10, 2017 6:05:21 GMT
Wanna cripple humans? Just destroy the internet should be enough.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 10, 2017 6:13:21 GMT
Nukes and KEPs will be more effective than lasers for ground attack. Atmospheric interference reduces efficiency of laser to much. Another problem with lasers, is that countermeasures like smoke become effective further reducing efficiency. For high cross-sectional density projectiles at 10-20km/s, energy loss due to atmosphere is negligible and nothing short of a mountain will stop it. Lasers are cheaper for sustained bombardement (think years of near continuous operation). Losses because of diffraction can be mitigated by picking a suitable frequency and offset by raw power. Shipping in a few tons a year of fissiles and spare parts is cheaper than if you had to ship in that in addition to ammunition. If you have a lasernet in orbit, you can strike anywhere, anytime. The opposition can't continuously deploy smoke at all important assets. Smoke also doesn't work well with aircraft and missiles in flight. Lasers are the most cost-effective for blinding and crippling the enemy, kinetics and nukes for destroying hardened positions. That still leaves laser countermeasures like smoke or other refractory countermeasures. Add to that, that the most important targets would hardened be hardened. Sure lasers are more efficient at destroying farmsteads and cute couples strolling down avenues, but those aren't relevant targets. Anything so unprotected that lasers are more efficient is strategically insignificant. Lasers may be significant tactically as orbital strike support for ground combat, but not as a means of strategic bombardment.
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Post by bigbombr on May 10, 2017 6:29:55 GMT
... If you have a lasernet in orbit, you can strike anywhere, anytime. The opposition can't continuously deploy smoke at all important assets. Smoke also doesn't work well with aircraft and missiles in flight.Lasers are the most cost-effective for blinding and crippling the enemy, kinetics and nukes for destroying hardened positions. That still leaves laser countermeasures like smoke or other refractory countermeasures. Add to that, that the most important targets would hardened be hardened. Sure lasers are more efficient at destroying farmsteads and cute couples strolling down avenues, but those aren't relevant targets. Anything so unprotected that lasers are more efficient is strategically insignificant. Lasers may be significant tactically as orbital strike support for ground combat, but not as a means of strategic bombardment. Furthermore, as I said, above ground power lines are fragile and important infrastructure. Not all infrastructure can be hardened, either because it would be impractical or financially unfeasible.
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