Sci-fi Shields

[[Tycho?]]

I think you guys are over-emphasizing the role projectile weapons would play in space warfare. Remember that space craft move at rediculously high speeds, and even if we were just in the local solar system, the distances are massive. Ships would be shooting at eachother from thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers away, and if you are just shooting a slug of metal, it is very easy to avoid it- simply vary your thrust. Over such large distances, it would take a noticable amount of time for your projectile to get to the target, it could take minutes, hours, or whatever. If you think someone is shooting at you, put your engines on for 2 seconds, or turn them off for two seconds. The slug will miss you by a wide margin. Thus projectiles would only be useful at extreme close quarters of space combat.

 

Lasers are where its at.

[JaKiri]

'']Ships would be shooting at eachother from thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers away, and if you are just shooting a slug of metal, it is very easy to avoid it- simply vary your thrust.

 

Replace 'ships' with 'planes' and divide the distances by 100, and realise how silly this objection is.

 

If you want a hint, it's called 'homing weapons'.

[[Tycho?]]

Replace 'ships' with 'planes' and divide the distances by 100' date=' and realise how silly this objection is.

 

If you want a hint, it's called 'homing weapons'.[/quote']

 

People were not talking about homing weapons in great detail, they were talking about the use of gauss guns shooting non-homing chunks of metal.

 

And even then the distances are still insane. If we are far enough in the future to be talking about "sci-fi sheilds" the distances are absoulutely rediculous. Its over 300 000km to the moon alone, let alone mars or the asteroid belt. You could have homing weapons certainly, but they would need to be big.

 

Lasers would be what defines space warfare, because they have such a large potential range, and the beam moves at c. Its the fastest way to shoot someone over these distances.

[JaKiri]

I think you're forgetting the main problem of projectile weapons in space.

 

Newton's Third.

[[Tycho?]]

Well yeah thats obviously tricky as well, you'd need to burn a lot of fuel unless you want to fly away. Meh, this could be overcome with difficulty though, I was just pointing out that over huge distances it isn't a very useful weapon period, even if you could do it.

[JaKiri]

Of course, all talk of space combat is fairly premature, because currently the ships are such that you could throw a rock through the side and kill everyone.

 

Well, not quite that bad, but the point remains. Space vessels are really fragile because we couldn't get them into orbit otherwise.

[[Tycho?]]

Yeah, just take up a bag full of ball bearings and spread them out in a path infront of a current ship. Good bye mr ship/

[Rasori]

LOL.

 

However, we are talking about sci-fi shields. It's not a totally scientific discussion, because we're talking about theoretical technologies. And we're not explaining how to make these theoretical technologies work

[Sayonara]

Hence it's in general discussions.

[MadScientist]

LOL.

 

However' date=' we are talking about sci-fi shields. It's not a totally scientific discussion, because we're talking about theoretical technologies. And we're not explaining how to make these theoretical technologies work [/quote']

 

In that case has anyone thought of using anti gravity fields??

Or would those theoretically require far more energy than an EM field which could deflect even non metallic weapons?

 

I could never understand why, in the movies, they never just shoot the projectile apart using lasers. If the projectiles can shield themselves from lasers that means lasers would probably be useless against ships anyway.

[Rasori]

I think it's for dramatic effect

 

Anti-gravity fields are a good option, assuming, of course, we ever get the technology to make one (perhaps we already have it, I'm not up-to-date on all technologies, but I didn't think we had one) and that you mean anti-grav as in reverse-gravity, because cancelling out gravity would have very little effect.

[JaKiri]

Christ no, we don't have an antigravity field, or anything like it.

[Rasori]

Good. I didn't think I was THAT far behind the times.

[YT2095]

Same Pole magnetism is about the best you`ll get Field wise or maybe electrostatic repulsion

[Edward]

Ok Iv been building my knolege of space warfare and understand allot about what can and can't be done under different circumsances. In this case we are trying to defend against human made wepons that means we would be defending against progectile wepons travelling at less than C and these could be made from virtually any substance. The most simple way to defend against these wepons is interseption with the objective of destruction or deflection with either lasers (Vaporization) or another projectile which is possible with good enough sensors and computing speed and power. The other option is to move out of the way this is probily difficult to do if ur on a manned ship due to G forces unless you are talking about an unmanned ship. Now if ur dealing with a guided progectile or ballistic wepon then you just need faster reaction and such. Another way to defend is with an energy feild (I don't know much bout these but ill give you my best help info). From what I understand a magnetic feild could be used to mannipulate incomming objects possibily pulling the object away from the main body of the ship. From what I understand it is possible to repel most ferromagnetic substances weather magnetised or not using magnets this could work but not easily I'd rether change it's tragectory rather than try to stop it dead. The other option is electrostatic feilds from what I understand these can be manipulated to do whatever you want to do with them I'd use them like I suggested with the magnets.

 

There are also lots of possibilities for energy wepons. There are two defences for these. One is other energy fields (I have too little knoleage of intereaction between different energy form to discuss them intellegently) but I think it may be possible. Now the most simple way to defend against these is some kind of armor like A carbon plate (In the form of clear dimonds) then a well polished mettel behind this. The problem with this is it destroys all hope of stealthyness you could have a outer layer of a dark paint or something if you want. I'v never thought of YT's idea of using a smoke screen but it sounds possible. One thing you'd want to do is find out where the enemy fire is comming from and fire your wepons at that point to try to damage or destroy the wepon.

[Sayonara]

This thread is now off-topic.

[Edward]

y u say dat?

[Sayonara]

Because we've drifted away from potential shield technologies to general space warfare.

 

Speaking of which, I remember seeing a space warfare thread somewhere a while ago that was really good.

[Rasori]

Sayo, if that was in response to Edward's post, it's uncalled for.

 

The post started with just space warfare, but he talked about shielding. Plus, talk about warfare tells us what we may need these shields to protect against, and thus what we need to have to make the shields work.

[YT2095]

well as far I see it, there`s only 2 sorts.

 

Active and Passive sheilding only, take your pick from there

[Sayonara]

Sayo, if that was in response to Edward's post, it's uncalled for.

Why don't you read up a bit further than the post that was directly before mine, and tell me how a discussion of projectile weapon deployments in space is related to shields?

 

(Mind you, I didn't exactly help responding to YT's question on scorpions.)

[Edward]

Well if we are gonna discuss sheilds and defences in space then we need to know what we are defending against right?

[Sayonara]

Yes, however the point of having such shields is to ensure that your capacity for avoiding or absorbing the damage they cause is not contingent on their method of deployment.

[Edward]

Their methode of deployment can have allot of effect on how you defend against them. The deployment methode can affect the speed the projectile travels or weather it is megnetised or not (really big affect on how to defend using a magnetic feild). And we also disscussed that they would probily be coming from far away so we where able to determine that we would probily to detect the prettery early. There a unknown amount of factors we could discover that effect the type of schielding you need.

[Rasori]

Put it this way, Sayo: if we were trying to develop armor from medieval times, the first question we'd ask would be "Are we defending againts spears, slashing swords, thrusting swords, or arrows?"

Say we were talking about ranged weapons--arrows--and we needed the armor for that. We'd need to get an estimate of the speed and range of the arrows, so we can make sure the armor is strong enough and the right form to stop or deflect the arrows.

You don't develop armor as an all-purpose thing, you develop it to defend against something else. As such, you need to know how that something else works.

 

Now, the thread gets more and more off-topic as we keep debating about whether or not it is off-topic, so let's get back to the futuristic Sci-fi Shields, shall we?