|
Post by shurugal on Dec 18, 2016 18:35:09 GMT
<emphasis mine> I missed an important feature. adding the 1m gap allowed this armor package to withstand the first shot. The second, however, went in through the same hole and made the kill. Use spacer to make nose pointy. Also try this: Inner 5cm gap 2-3cm spallation liner of your choosing e.g. aramid or UHDPE 2cm gap 3cm boron 3m graphite/silicon aerogel(test both) 1m gap 5cm amorphous carbon 5mm silver(lasers are to be mirrored and conducted away, not ablated). Outer I'd say armor engineering is, chances may be, the hardest discipline in space murder engineering. But it is revarding, if someone can actually remember that best kkv defence is a lot of rapid-firing high-caliber convential guns with small flat high-explosive payloads. Go for coils and high-density if you are wary of turrets exploding. Also, when coilguns with 500% efficiency, no overheat and no recoil will be unbroken, lot's of those megacannon designs are going to die out. Should adversary still go for it, it would require Gc ship to handle it, and then stakes are these high, budget permits armor to start from 5m range. Remember, that expencive capships have to have maximum nosecone opening of 30 degrees to radius(60 total) and always face enemy with the nose. If your armor is too heawy for full coverage of the nose, vital components(crew module stack in the middle) projection in the most central part of the cone should be covered in full while less important modules such as guns and multiply redundant fuel tanks frontal projection should have even steeper cone if their protection is less. Note that since you have less space to place your guns in front, kkv interception should be managed by support corvettes dedicated for that. Also separate your frontal area in 2-3 isolated compartments with custom radiation shields bulkheads and each ring of turrets have to sit from their own compartment. Also note that you can make any sort of composite armor bulkheads with composition of multiple radshielding parts. Bulkheads are generally great for big ships. Also, try this for capships: Inner 5-6m aerogel(test both) 1m gap 5cm spallation catcher 1m gap 1cm osmium 10cm diamond 3cm silver Outer Feel free to play with gaps +-50% and adjust silver to protect your ship up until 90% of your main caliber range. Osmium backing might need to be 2cm, but then gap befor it should be increased and spallation catcher must become tougher. I've had a ship that alone managed to kill a 1.5 Gc fleet(it cost about 1100-1200 Mc itself) before they managed to kill it and still had 3300 dV(it had 5000 at engagement) to return home(obviously ignoring range), the armor was the one described but doubled everything exept gaps and 7m of silicon aerogel. It survived with exploded fuel tanks between first and second mainbody bulkheads(after the cone bulkheads), one penetration killing fuel tank beyound that and crew still intact beyound forth bulkhead, and it was still fighting with 1 coilgun surviving between second coil bulkhead and first mainbody bulkhead, while launching drones from compartmant between 5th and 6th bulkhead where cylinder was alredy a receding cone and so this compartment was nearly invincible for fire from the front. Main reactors are between 6th and 7th, backups between 3rd and 4th, crew compartment(already receding cone have backcup radioisotopics and everything has it's all triple-redundant radiators all over receding cone. Drone launchers eject at 7 m/s just to avoid radiators and all drones have railguns and resistojets and are totally nonexplosive. Engines have bell much thicker than nesessary to increase surviveability and running at suboptimal temperatures 200-300 degrees lower to protect from stray gigaton nukes. 5th to 7th bulkheads were just explosionproof to survive compartment detonation. And this design was severely underoptimised, I've managed to increase dV to 11k by engine optimisation alone and switching to semiheawy water, but then my HDD apparently thought that this thing was too awesome to ever fly and died. Note that that was a patch ago and so may not work now. Also, is it ok for me to shill my other posts which I think require greater attention and replies? It is about advertising COADE to a specific(but numerous) audience with wide pockets and it is not going to cost us any money. don't know how i missed this post. Anyway, nose has a spacer for pointy, and it is pointy on the inside. the thickness of the other layers made the noise flatten out, though.
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Dec 19, 2016 22:33:49 GMT
erik ross explained it. Reusable "delivery" stages will be far less cost and mass effective as lethality and effectiveness of defense systems rise. Now, while i overwhelmingly generally agree with what people have put forward here, i think it is important to realise that a very simple principle may have been overlooked: cost. When we casually talk about lasers, railguns and UAV's we have to remember that while im sure many of us do live in the U S of A, many do not. The majority of the people of the world already have basic(if any) access to a fraction of the systems that the heavy hitters like the G8 and UN security counsel nations have access to. Even for something like SAM's we are now writing off, dozens of complicated systems and industries had to have existed. Metal manufacturing, computer technologies, expendable gyroscopic and navigational sensors. Hell if you tie it back to the necessary progenitor components, you are looking at the entire USSR/USA Nazi derived ballistics programs. The shells which newageofpower has so casually mentioned will be fired from railguns, of which the most common ship to likely mount it is the zumwalt, of whom the average contemporary cost of a shell is i shit you not 800,000$ of US taxpayer money. As much as i would love to think that a Railgun shell will cost so much less, the notion of rocket boosting it in addition to armature and rails cost means $$$ Then think of the platforms involved, nuclear or super diesel powered mega engines, mounted on multi billion dollar super ships(of course allot of the cost is Senatorial incompetence but i digress). Look at the wars of the late 20 and early 21'rst century. Vietnam, the middle east, the Falklands war all presumed supposed curb stomps by the some of the most expensive and best equipped armies in the world, but look at what happened. Cheaper, easier to maintain mass produced solutions time and time again caused trouble, if not outright killed and defeated multi million dollar platforms and soldiers. So before we presume to make these nice clean rock-paper-scissors arguments of weapon hierarchies, some perspective might be good.
|
|
|
Post by newageofpower on Dec 20, 2016 2:45:26 GMT
Look at the wars of the late 20 and early 21'rst century. Vietnam, the middle east, the Falklands war all presumed supposed curb stomps by the some of the most expensive and best equipped armies in the world, but look at what happened. Cheaper, easier to maintain mass produced solutions time and time again caused trouble, if not outright killed and defeated multi million dollar platforms and soldiers. So before we presume to make these nice clean rock-paper-scissors arguments of weapon hierarchies, some perspective might be good. Are you telling me that jet fighters are going to be cheaper than missile stages?
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Dec 20, 2016 3:17:00 GMT
Not exactly but also yeah pretty much, the Falklands was a great example of this, low flying Super Etendard fighter jets acted as a first stage and launch platform for the Exocet missiles and 1000 pound bombs that would end up sinking no less than six British ships. The British had advanced mid and long range missile interception systems, they simply did not anticipate such a simple attack plan.
That is not to say that laser based CIWS would not trounce them, or that added missile staging would be cheaper, and that the computer limitations of the times limited long range target calculations and guidance. I was just trying to make a general point on the assumption that more advanced=absolute victory without the consideration of complications of the societies backing these weapons, or the "cost" of general resources and how these things can be exploited.
Returning to the Falklands example by your original reasoning the Argentinians should have scored no kills whatsoever, Their planes cost 12 million, with each exocet costing around 800,000(euros). I can't find any sources for the Sea Dart, but i doubt it would cost more than the aforementioned combo. In addition skyhawk's equipped with dumb 1000'er bombs also damaged and sunk ships. Once again this is not to say that manned aircraft will be around forever, or even that they should be. Just that given this situation the British should have annihilated the Argentinian air forces, yet they took heavy loses due to a simple tactical decision.
TLDR yes a missile with another stage is cheaper, but so is twelve hundred hand grenade iphone bombs tied to aerosol cans launched at an enemy ship from a wayward shipping container.
|
|
|
Post by jasonvance on Dec 20, 2016 4:21:16 GMT
Look at the wars of the late 20 and early 21'rst century. Vietnam, the middle east, the Falklands war all presumed supposed curb stomps by the some of the most expensive and best equipped armies in the world, but look at what happened. Cheaper, easier to maintain mass produced solutions time and time again caused trouble, if not outright killed and defeated multi million dollar platforms and soldiers. So before we presume to make these nice clean rock-paper-scissors arguments of weapon hierarchies, some perspective might be good. Are you telling me that jet fighters are going to be cheaper than missile stages? The ideal plan is to not lose the fighters or put them anywhere near real combat and only use them as a re-usable mobile launcher platform so the only cost/mission is fuel. It looks great on paper but with how thin and cheap you can make fuel tanks in game I don't think it is really as practical as it is in real life as if one flight of fighter drones got intercepted the gains in a reusable platform would be lost with the loss of that drone fleet. The simple math to run on if a reusable mobile launching platform out weighs multi-stage disposable rockets is to simply do the math on the total cost of the multi-stage vs the cost of the drone vs the cost of the fuel. You can then determine exactly how many missions the drone needs to survive before it "pays" for itself when compared to multi-stage missiles. The reason I say drone fighters and not manned fighters is making the missile platforms manned by people is extremely impractical due to the extra mass and cost of having living beings on board. Even simply accommodating a single human pilot would greatly increase the mass and cost of the vessel. The returns on a reusable platform would take many many missions to pay for themselves, and isn't really accurately represented in game as each sandbox/mission is a single encounter and there is no benefit to having munitions left over at the end of it. Say the final stage missile costs 1,000 credits and the multi-stage delivery platform costs 1,000 credits with 750 being fuel and a fighter drone costs 10,000, but since the drone returns / is retrieved only the cost in fuel is used / mission. In this case the operation cost is 2,000 credits / multi-stage and 1,750 credits / drone so after 40 successful missions the drone will have paid for itself and will then be saving money over the multi-stage rocket design. Now those numbers are completely made up, but you can imagine the gains in missile effectiveness by using an efficient MPD drone to get the missiles up to an extremely high speed (allowing for a very quick intercept velocity for the final missile). Using a fuel like neon on the MPD (which is extremely cheap, but not practical for standard rockets) can further increase the efficiency of the delivery platform. The reason it would be kind of bad to abandon an MPD platform is the reactor cost required to power it. Of course as mentioned this looks great on paper but becomes extremely ineffective if your drones are being intercepted and destroyed.
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Dec 20, 2016 6:11:07 GMT
Jsonvance, makes some very strong points.
To add to that i would also say that there is a multiplicity of roles not found in game that real life fighters have. An additional missile stage is simply that, an additional disposable stage. But a drone in actuality(and fighter planes/UAVs in reality) could be re-equipped payload wise to: -launch communication/observation sats, -ferry supplies to and from a ship down a gravity well without needing to move the whole vessel -change drone load outs etc.
I mean look at space-x's whole reusable model, in essence it can be at times less purely efficient and less fast to re use and land stages, but the old metaphor of buying a new car every time you run out of gas holds true.
|
|
|
Post by dwwolf on Dec 20, 2016 6:41:18 GMT
The Zumwalt uses an advanced 6" gun. Most of the LRLAP shell cost is R&D at this point because the zumwalt fleet was reduced in size by 90%. Less rounds bought = less R&D cost spread out. Same with the F22 unit cost is about the same as F35 cost now. A railgun is planned and in development but not operational.
|
|
|
Post by cuddlefish on Dec 20, 2016 6:59:49 GMT
Well, it's the usual false economy of cutting orders of things you've already paid the development money on. That money's in the hole, you might as well get three dozen planes rather than three.
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Dec 20, 2016 7:35:14 GMT
The Zumwalt uses an advanced 6" gun. Most of the LRLAP shell cost is R&D at this point because the zumwalt fleet was reduced in size by 90%. Less rounds bought = less R&D cost spread out. Same with the F22 unit cost is about the same as F35 cost now. A railgun is planned and in development but not operational. Does it really fucking matter at that point, even if the shell was only 80000, (the price of a javelin missile, just the missile not the 100000, launcher) i think most people can see the skyrocketingly stupid cost of "cutting edge" military hardware. Meanwhile in Syria where an arms crisis has driven prises up, RPG rounds have gone from 100 dollars to 500, five times their original cost sure, but still enough to buy 160 RPG warheads, then considering most modern protection systems(cost aside) account for at best one or two consecutive hits, and you not only have enough to take out a tank, but quite actually liquefy the thing to smithereens. This is what i was trying to get at, the sheer efficiency of mass produced work house designs, at a fraction of the cost.
|
|
khenderson
New Member
my god, it's full of missiles
Posts: 40
|
Post by khenderson on Dec 20, 2016 14:01:02 GMT
The Zumwalt uses an advanced 6" gun. Most of the LRLAP shell cost is R&D at this point because the zumwalt fleet was reduced in size by 90%. Less rounds bought = less R&D cost spread out. Same with the F22 unit cost is about the same as F35 cost now. A railgun is planned and in development but not operational. Does it really fucking matter at that point, even if the shell was only 80000, (the price of a javelin missile, just the missile not the 100000, launcher) i think most people can see the skyrocketingly stupid cost of "cutting edge" military hardware. Meanwhile in Syria where an arms crisis has driven prises up, RPG rounds have gone from 100 dollars to 500, five times their original cost sure, but still enough to buy 160 RPG warheads, then considering most modern protection systems(cost aside) account for at best one or two consecutive hits, and you not only have enough to take out a tank, but quite actually liquefy the thing to smithereens. This is what i was trying to get at, the sheer efficiency of mass produced work house designs, at a fraction of the cost. I don't know what you're angry about, but you appear to be ignoring the issue of capability. If you need to take out a light armored fighting vehicle from within a few hundred meters, then an RPG will work. On the other hand, if you need to take out that same AFV, or perhaps a runway, from over the horizon, it's unlikely to matter how many RPG rounds you have.
|
|
|
Post by argonbalt on Dec 20, 2016 14:36:16 GMT
I was comparing the javelin missile to the rpg, not the AGS shell. Since i get that this is obviously a more sciency forum, i guess i should have been more blunt and put it like this;
Complicated advanced weapons, while superior have over a vast majority of the time shown to also be superior in cost. That cost is both the actual $cost of the weapon, and the necessary support structures and industries that need to exist and keep existing for the continuation of the weapon period. So while an advanced system , like for example a laser CIWS is superior to conventional systems, the actual weapon and it's vulnerabilities extend well past the deck mounting and sub board weapons housing compartments. They exist in all the complicated and myriad resource extraction, refineries, power plant assembly lines, maintenance equipment and crew training, finally ending with the operational personnel that press the button.
IF even just a few components of that system were jeopardised, not on the battlefield, but elsewhere, the more complicated the system the more susceptible to problems. Think if society collapsed, what weapons would exist ten years into the future? AK-47's? Absolutely, ive seen people turn a few shovels into one of those things, they are probably being fired right now in Aleppo. But navies? railguns? lasers? heck no.
Only a few millennia ago a slight shift in climate and displacement of people living in Europe caused an entire collapse, and armies and societies that relied on the bronze extraction from the Carpathians to make bronze weapons and armour could no longer support themselves.
SO yes AGS shell is better at hitting an airfield or a parking lot, but for allot cheaper a dozen mortar squads or a dumb fired rocket artillery. The point is that simplicity and efficiency of design, while never as cutting edge or glamorously futuristic are both strong, strong merits to have.
|
|
|
Post by jonen on Dec 20, 2016 18:38:20 GMT
I had an idea for some light armor. As it happened, it didn't work out, but that's still a way to get 300 lasers into the campaign. (Also, hilariously, I actually managed to get the front mounted lasers to kill stock gunships - you need to use homing, and keep lateral velocity as close to zero as possible, and it's worthless against anything that's got to small a cross section - at least one turreted lasers to deal with drones and missiles is definitely warranted.)
|
|
|
Post by fenrin49 on Dec 20, 2016 19:30:36 GMT
are those un turreted lasers being used as reactive armour? i was thinking of doing something similar by throwing out disks of armor as a sort of magazine fed whipple shield
|
|
erik
New Member
Posts: 34
|
Post by erik on Dec 20, 2016 19:44:37 GMT
AK-47's? Absolutely, ive seen people turn a few shovels into one of those things, they are probably being fired right now in Aleppo. But navies? railguns? lasers? heck no. I will not re-enter this discussion but I think you'd find it interesting that they have several thousands of, believe it or not, Sturmgewehr 44s. They built some wicked iphone-controlled gun stations with a webcam mounted on over 70 year old guns and probably equally old ammo. Similarly Taliban still uses Lee-Enfield(they manufacture ammo too) and our local military uses action groups and receivers, even some barrels, of M91s that are well over a century old. We would probably see slightly different design choices if cost would include manufacturing costs instead of just materials.
|
|
|
Post by David367th on Dec 20, 2016 20:04:10 GMT
We would probably see slightly different design choices if cost would include manufacturing costs instead of just materials. If I recall qswitched said part of the cost of materials is how easy they are to work with in a manufacturing sense. As if it were easier to shape or mold it's cheaper.
|
|