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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 26, 2017 12:19:16 GMT
Note that the existence or even launch event of the missile doesn't necessarily needs to be undetected. Once in flight, it only needs to prevent the other side to have a precise enough detection to get a firing solution. This is something I feel many people on these forums overlook. Sure, you can see the enemy's burn exhaust, but I don't buy that you would get an accurate firing solution just by looking at the exhaust. This is especially true for say inert missiles launched at high velocities from a blast launcher. You'd get an instantaneous flash but surely that wouldn't be enough to accurately deduce direction and velocity of the projectile.
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 26, 2017 17:57:23 GMT
Note that the existence or even launch event of the missile doesn't necessarily needs to be undetected. Once in flight, it only needs to prevent the other side to have a precise enough detection to get a firing solution. This is something I feel many people on these forums overlook. Sure, you can see the enemy's burn exhaust, but I don't buy that you would get an accurate firing solution just by looking at the exhaust. This is especially true for say inert missiles launched at high velocities from a blast launcher. You'd get an instantaneous flash but surely that wouldn't be enough to accurately deduce direction and velocity of the projectile. An inert projectile whose launch isn't observed can be hard to detect. An object performing a burn will light up on IR camera's, which can be sufficiently accurate for fire solutions. But if you detect a signature, but your data is insufficient for a firing solution, you can swipe the general area with a diffuse beam. If you hit the object, its thermal signature will increase, allowing you to narrow down the trajectory and location more, meaning you'll hit the object more often, meaning it'll heat p even more, ... Repeat until the object is hot enough for achieving a firing solution for fully focused fire.
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Post by princesskibble on Aug 26, 2017 18:16:43 GMT
This is something I feel many people on these forums overlook. Sure, you can see the enemy's burn exhaust, but I don't buy that you would get an accurate firing solution just by looking at the exhaust. This is especially true for say inert missiles launched at high velocities from a blast launcher. You'd get an instantaneous flash but surely that wouldn't be enough to accurately deduce direction and velocity of the projectile. An inert projectile whose launch isn't observed can be hard to detect. An object performing a burn will light up on IR camera's, which can be sufficiently accurate for fire solutions. But if you detect a signature, but your data is insufficient for a firing solution, you can swipe the general area with a diffuse beam. If you hit the object, its thermal signature will increase, allowing you to narrow down the trajectory and location more, meaning you'll hit the object more often, meaning it'll heat p even more, ... Repeat until the object is hot enough for achieving a firing solution for fully focused fire. That's basically a really inefficient way of doing the same thing a separate acquisition and fire control radar would do.
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 26, 2017 19:00:16 GMT
An inert projectile whose launch isn't observed can be hard to detect. An object performing a burn will light up on IR camera's, which can be sufficiently accurate for fire solutions. But if you detect a signature, but your data is insufficient for a firing solution, you can swipe the general area with a diffuse beam. If you hit the object, its thermal signature will increase, allowing you to narrow down the trajectory and location more, meaning you'll hit the object more often, meaning it'll heat p even more, ... Repeat until the object is hot enough for achieving a firing solution for fully focused fire. That's just a really retarded radar though, isn't it? Why wouldn't you use a radar for that? Somehow inverse square applies to radar but not diffuse beams?
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 26, 2017 19:09:30 GMT
That's basically a really inefficient way of doing the same thing a separate acquisition and fire control radar would do. *LIDAR That's just a really retarded radar though, isn't it? Why wouldn't you use a radar for that? Somehow inverse square applies to radar but not diffuse beams? Tighter cone means less energy wasted. And using your main laser means you don't have to carry twice the mass. Some people like to use a different gadget for every task. Other people try to use what they've got as flexible as possible. If it works as well or better than LIDAR, why botter with a seperate fire and control LIDAR, with its own cost, mass and energy use?
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Post by princesskibble on Aug 26, 2017 19:40:20 GMT
That's basically a really inefficient way of doing the same thing a separate acquisition and fire control radar would do. *LIDAR That's just a really retarded radar though, isn't it? Why wouldn't you use a radar for that? Somehow inverse square applies to radar but not diffuse beams? Tighter cone means less energy wasted. And using your main laser means you don't have to carry twice the mass. Some people like to use a different gadget for every task. Other people try to use what they've got as flexible as possible. If it works as well or better than LIDAR, why botter with a seperate fire and control LIDAR, with its own cost, mass and energy use? Optimizing each instrument to it's task for maximum efficiency! Allowing multiple things to be done at once. If your battle laser is the only instrument you have for tracking targets, then when your using it as a weapon, everything else is going un-tracked!
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 26, 2017 19:48:27 GMT
*LIDAR Tighter cone means less energy wasted. And using your main laser means you don't have to carry twice the mass. Some people like to use a different gadget for every task. Other people try to use what they've got as flexible as possible. If it works as well or better than LIDAR, why botter with a seperate fire and control LIDAR, with its own cost, mass and energy use? Optimizing each instrument to it's task for maximum efficiency! Allowing multiple things to be done at once. If your battle laser is the only instrument you have for tracking targets, then when your using it as a weapon, everything else is going un-tracked! It's either on the same trajectory as before, or is burning and thus a massive IR signature. I assume IR would actually be sufficient for weapons grade lock. The using your laser to search for targets would be a counter to low signature opponents, like hydrogen steamers.
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Post by princesskibble on Aug 26, 2017 20:06:26 GMT
Optimizing each instrument to it's task for maximum efficiency! Allowing multiple things to be done at once. If your battle laser is the only instrument you have for tracking targets, then when your using it as a weapon, everything else is going un-tracked! It's either on the same trajectory as before, or is burning and thus a massive IR signature. I assume IR would actually be sufficient for weapons grade lock. The using your laser to search for targets would be a counter to low signature opponents, like hydrogen steamers. I disagree that a passive sensor can resolve a hostile spacecraft orbit fast and accurate enough for a firing solution. Even a tiny deviation from your measurements and you could miss by kilometers. Besides you need several observations at different points on the orbit to figure it out without knowing range.
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 26, 2017 20:31:58 GMT
]Tighter cone means less energy wasted. And using your main laser means you don't have to carry twice the mass. Some people like to use a different gadget for every task. Other people try to use what they've got as flexible as possible. If it works as well or better than LIDAR, why botter with a seperate fire and control LIDAR, with its own cost, mass and energy use? You can have a radar with a tight cone, just the same as a laser. And an extra radar dish wouldn't be a noticeable addition in weight compared to a full articulated laser mirror. Besides, if your main laser is heating up submunitions fired by the enemy, it can't burn the actual enemy up. Your idea still sounds stupidly wasteful compared to a radar. It should be obvious that having your energy absorbed by the target and then passively radiate it away as heat is far more wasteful than just having your emitted energy reflect back at you. Sounds like you're trying to rationalize why passive IR is the best thing ever instead of thinking about this rationally.
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Post by thorneel on Aug 26, 2017 21:25:30 GMT
Note that you can actually make a Hydrolox thruster with a 22K exhaust temperature (with a 0.1 stoichiometric ratio) in CoaDE. Sure, the performance is kind of bad, with 3 km/s exhaust velocity, but CoaDE is also not meant for designing a low-signature drive anyway. It shows that you can have a high enough burn with cold thrust.
A hydrolox thruster would be for a relatively cheap, expendable missile. For a HS ship, you probably want to go with a hydrogen nuclear-thermal drive and an advanced nozzle that prevents any IR from the inside of the chamber to reach outside through the nozzle itself.
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Post by newageofpower on Aug 27, 2017 0:57:27 GMT
Sounds like you're trying to rationalize why passive IR is the best thing ever instead of thinking about this rationally. PASSIVE IR IS MADE OF DIAMONDS AND UNICORNS! (Personally, I think passive IR is mostly useful for general-information sweeps, and active scanners for hard locks. Unless it's apophys's personal battlestar, that thing is emitting enough heat to warm a small moon!)
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Post by Enderminion on Aug 27, 2017 1:26:16 GMT
Sounds like you're trying to rationalize why passive IR is the best thing ever instead of thinking about this rationally. PASSIVE IR IS MADE OF DIAMONDS AND UNICORNS! (Personally, I think passive IR is mostly useful for general-information sweeps, and active scanners for hard locks. Unless it's apophys 's personal battlestar, that thing is emitting enough heat to warm a small moon!) the moment you light up with active sensors you can expect the enemy to hit you with all of their weapons
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Post by princesskibble on Aug 27, 2017 1:57:00 GMT
PASSIVE IR IS MADE OF DIAMONDS AND UNICORNS! (Personally, I think passive IR is mostly useful for general-information sweeps, and active scanners for hard locks. Unless it's apophys 's personal battlestar, that thing is emitting enough heat to warm a small moon!) the moment you light up with active sensors you can expect the enemy to hit you with all of their weapons By the time you need to acquire a Target lock the enemy is already hitting you with all their weapons.
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Post by Enderminion on Aug 27, 2017 2:09:19 GMT
the moment you light up with active sensors you can expect the enemy to hit you with all of their weapons By the time you need to acquire a Target lock the enemy is already hitting you with all their weapons. radar homers can be on very small units, like missiles, you don't need a lock the missiles will home in and use bomb pumped lasers to skewer your radar unit
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Post by princesskibble on Aug 27, 2017 2:16:18 GMT
By the time you need to acquire a Target lock the enemy is already hitting you with all their weapons. radar homers can be on very small units, like missiles, you don't need a lock the missiles will home in and use bomb pumped lasers to skewer your radar unit Anti-radiation missiles aren't that much more effective than active or semi-active radar homing. Edit: besides, in real life there won't be any kind of "space warship" that's trying to defend against missiles at anything other than standoff range
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