![]() My starting point was the observation that if two ships are armed with similar-performance missiles, the more maneuverable ship has a crucial advantage. Thus my picture of kinetic space warfare was kinetic in style as well as in weaponry. The people who fight wars are not concerned to make them interesting that is only of concern to people inventing them in order to write about them. ![]() The third point is most shamelessly meta. (Extensive use of laser propulsion does change this equation.) As a point of comparison, in the 19th century military technology tended to adopt new civil technologies, rather than being a primary driving force in itself. Long range lasers probably have more limited and mainly military applications. The second hints at future history.Īny spacefaring society on a grand enough scale to have grand space battles has put generations or centuries of major effort into its overall space technology, whether its past has been peaceful or warlike. The first is a general consequence of space speeds. You may note that these three justifications are ranked by increasing meta-ness. I bring kinetics up again because they were long my weapon of preference for space warfare, for at least three distinct reasons, distinct in addressing different aspects of the overall problem:ġ - Missiles in space have effectively unlimited range, more than even Ravening Beams of Death.Ģ - If you have the space technology to put large numbers of people in space, you pretty definitionally have the capability to throw lots of luggage, and throw it fast.ģ - There is reasonable scope for tactical maneuver in kinetics-dominant space combat, something that (it seems to me) is much harder to get in laser combat. (Though the specific form of killer bus I described in the second post is a bad idea.) To regular readers of this blog it is no news in particular I discussed kinetics in two segments of this series of posts. This is the basis for kinetic weapons in space warfare. (Someone in the back raises their hand to ask, '100 km/s relative to what?' For purpose of this discussion the answer is 'relative to whatever it hits.' And you should have figured that out on your own.) In space the bang will be soundless, but it will still hurt. At 100 kilometers per second, any object - be it a depleted-uranium slug, a carton of skim milk, or a throw pillow - packs kinetic energy equal to 5 gigajoules per kg, equivalent to 1195 kg of TNT, rather more than a ton of bang.
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