Sensor Drones (was: Lasers can't be defended against?)

> -----Original Message-----
[Bri] I believe you meant omnidirectional. Unidirectional is
one-directional.
The problem with omnidirectional sources, as you indicated, is that they
illuminate everything in their area of effect. The problem with unidirectional
source is that it needs to know where the enemy is before it
illuminates them. Now you could use a conical-area source on a drone
(illuminating an area that the enemy is suspected to be in), but launching the
drone may provide your location to the enemy or you may have to use
expensive stealth/ECM on the drone, making them less expendable.
The above applies to detection rather than information gathering. If the
discussion is information gathering, please ignore the appropriate comments.

> On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, Bell, Brian K wrote:

> > From: Nyrath the nearly wise [SMTP:nyrath@clark.net]

indeed. perhaps this is an application for those bomb-pumped x-ray
lasers we all know and love? rather than setting them off next to your enemy
and trying to blow him up, you set them off in the middle of nowhere and use
them to illuminate him. indeed, you can combine the two. shoot
x-ray-tipped missiles at him, and if any miss (which they will), they
can use their otherwise wasted warheads to improve your data so that their
successors will do better. the further out your aim is, the more you miss, the
more iluminators you have, the more data you get, and the faster your aim
improves. bonus!

of course, most of your missiles will be shot down before they have a chance
to do anything at all.:(

tom