From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 20:17:10 -0500
Subject: orbital bombardment
Imre responded to my post, and I to him: Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 17:50:56 -0500 From: "Imre A. Szabo" <ias@sprintmail.com> Subject: Re: Bombardment and Beams Does my minor in Mathematics count??? [Tomb] Dunno, if it was anything like the time I spent in Pure Math, maybe not.;) The point isn't to cover a ten km box of space. The point is that if the enemy is position is off by a 0.000001 degrees from where you predict he will be when you fire, you still have a chance to hit him. assuming 10,000 km per MU, range of 36 MU; this gives us 10000km * 1000 m/km * 36 *tan(0.000001) = 6.28 m. Area of a circle of this radius is 124 sq.m. This is much less then a 10 km box which is 100,000,000 sq. m... [Tomb] Okay, take that 0.000001 and change it to 0.00001 or 0.0001. The numbers go up a lot. A lot has to do with your expectations and assumptions about the technology. However, if you take 124 sq. m and assume one pulse per 4 sq. m, then you are only talking 8 pulses times the power required. A fighter will slip through, but then fighters are supposed to. [Tomb] And let us assume for a moment materials have advanced apace with your fire control and focusing abilities. I think the amount of energy required will be substantial. I'm thinking that a weapon that wants to actually damage an FT ship decently has really two or three factors to deal with: Getting a hit of any kind and having that hit do enough damage to be meaningful and doing that within a finite budget of available offensive energy. The first of those is aided by rapid fire (across an area) or a scattergun effect. The second of those is aided by having more powerful individual shots. The third of those is impeded by both of the former two. It seems to me FT weapons must be a compromise, but there is *no* point in getting a hit if you don't do meaningful damage, so the second objective is actually the important one. Thus the emphasis is on having a shot do some damage when it hits. So, I guess it boils down to how much fire you figure can be put out to achieve that. I'm assuming batteries that fire slowly (for temperature and energy build up reasons) and make great attempts to hit what they aim at. There could be (and probably are) multiple pulses. But I don't think of them as high rate area sweepers. I just don't think they could pack meaningful power levels in without having a ridiculous power demand. Yes, 0.000001 degree is a very small error when you consider two ships each moving 3 dimensionally realtive to each other at that range. [Tomb] Quite. But you're the one who commented on area sweeping effects, IIRC. If you're going to say the area you meant was incredibly small, then why say that? If it is a sizeable area, then that implies either individually weak shots or a whopping input energy. > Which brings us to bombardments. I <snip> and > to obliterate cities, etc). Otherwise we'd PLEASE CHECK MY ORIGINAL SUGGESTIONS. BEAMS AREN'T VERY EFFECTIVE ON EARTH TYPE PLANETS, YOU NEED CLASS 4 OR LARGER TO DO ANYTHING. [Tomb] My comments on how *I* view orbital bombardment made no particular direct reference to your suggestions. I read them (at least skimmed) and wasn't interested in commenting directly on your mechanics. Therefore your emphasis addresses a point I had not taken up. Nor will I. Your rules didn't seem totally unreasonable, to the extent I paid attention to them. Some of your philosophy I'm not in total agreement with. I was merely advancing my opinion of what I think things must be like in the canonical universe. Imre: As for the fighters, Thunderbolts exist in B5 specifically to fix that defficency in Earth Force. [Tomb] Yep, but down below you argue against ground attack fighters. Interesting.... I don't like the Ortillary system because they are NOT ammo dependent. [Tomb] In what sense? Limited ammo? (Ever heard of a fleet collier? also notice GMS systems don't have ammo constraints) Or that they don't have ammunition choice? DS2 and SG2 present only a very simplified picture of actual artillery capability and variety. Imre: As for orbital bombardment satelites, make a small space station with 1 hull, and a couple submunition packs loaded with orbital bombardment submunitions. Carry in a freighter (or cargo hold of a military ship, or fighter bay of carrier) and deploy when needed. [Tomb] That kind of design (although I'd claim you require something big enough to hold an ortillery module) is probably what I'm talking about. > And it seems to me their ought to be a Why bother. Use standard fighter types. Can have a very rough time going into the atmosphere... [Tomb] You mentioned the thunderbolt from the B5 Universe, and you mention the rough time in atmosphere. I add to that the possibilities of interception inside the atmospheric envelope by highly specialized interceptors who should be able to outfight your "standard space fighter". Plus I'm not sure the Thunderbolt of Starfury are even aerodynamic enough to be viable (okay, I guess the B2 proves a brick can fly with enough power.....). My point was that a fighter designed for space combat is a poor choice for in-atmosphere ordinance deployment against ground targets, especially in the close support role. It seems that it would be overly vulnerable. That's in my original idea. [Tomb] Except it seems to me that a ship with a single class 4 beam could freely roam around and roast formations, cities, etc with no reply from the defenders assuming it had orbital superiority. (Or did I read that wrong?) Something tells me that considering the value of planets, some serious effort would be put into planetary defenses sufficient to prevent that. (Class 10 ground mount beams? Ground launched salvo missiles? I don't know, whatever). > domination of the campaign worlds to from threatening any surface combat action without specialized assets. If it's a planet similar to Earth, corvettes won't be effective, unless they have one shot weapons, ideally loaded with orbital bombardment munitions. Note that this will make them one shot wonders. [Tomb] Okay, how about a B4 armed DD? I ask because this design is fairly viable as a vector combatant (not so in cinematic) and could also, by your rules if I read them right, make for a nasty bombardier. And squadrons of them would be just nasty. Frankly, I'd just rather that atmospheres of any significant level just plain stopped beams dead. I think ground assault requires specialized assets which are nigh on useless in space. Period. So if your navy decides to show up without them or loses them, you're done for planetary attack until you fetch replacements. Yep, they're mop up opperation like the Central Pacific campaign if your fleet can't threaten the enemy. But if the fleets are comparable, you wind up fighting a serries of Guadalcannals... Both sides darting in to land reinforcement and do a quick barrage of the enemy position, and then dash off... [Tomb] Which is fine, if the analogy worked. It breaks down because in 1945, it was very hard to know where the other fleet was and all the islands were effectively different places (as in fact were different parts of the same island) due to the technology of the time. Now, an entire world is effectively one place, as far as interdicting traffic to it probably goes. So I don't think you'll ever get this situation unless you have terrible luck. If you don't go into an invasion with enough force to sweep space, you deserve to lose. If you do sweep space, you'd better darn well hold it or the troops you've landed are in bad situations. Allowing his ships to enter the atmospheric envelope for any purpose is likely to see to it that he plants a nuke on some of your boys (more worrisome than the "supplies" he might bring in or even the "reinforcements"). A true planetary invasion had better involve one side taking and holding the planet and the space around it for a fair distance. And if they do that, any "landers" will be blown sky high. So at that point, it behoves the invaded party to not waste such efforts trying to sneak in, but to build up and come in with a true relief force, again oriented to taking out whatever is there and winning space superiority. I think if you really have not truly established local space superiority, you have no real business landing troops. And if you can't hold it, the troops you have landed are in a lot of trouble. And that, my friend, is not exactly the Pacific War all over again.