I have an SF project in the oven :rolleyes: and it includes the use of guns and cannons for outer space use. Of course, mine will be gauss/rail guns, but the thing that nags at me is the nature of the projectile's loads. There will be, of course, KE and "grape" shots. But the ones I can't figure out are the explosive ones. In my backstory, explosive ordnance carry their own oxidizer/combustible mixed in so whiffingly speaking I have it covered by this little physics laws warping.
Have any of you seen/dreamed/invented anything like this ones?
Oh! and check Orionblamblam's Orion's thread, with an interesting cannon/gun armed "space cruiser" concept: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,22882.msg330513.html#msg330513
Rafa
well, as far as a sci-fi build, i always had a feeling of a militarised version of the space shuttle, equiped with an ASAT laser, deployable laser satellites and EMP Torpedo's & spacemines :huh:
(EPM = ElectroMagnetic Pulse, as these can fry an enemy satellite, shuttle or space station's electronics, making it unable to fight ;D )
Rafa, existing guns and explosive shells would work just fine in space. They don't require any atmospheric oxygen both the shell and the propellant are completely self contained explosive and oxidizer. The only problem is making sure that the trajectory is thought out. You wouldn't want to fire an explosive shell that missed the target and then orbited back around the planet and hit you an hour or so later.
Ed
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
Good site for info on real space combat.
The other problem is recoil, of course. ;)
The Russians built an experimental armed satellite, which was equipped with a 37mm cannon IIRC.
EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz
Regarding projectile loads, I think a fragmentation warhead would be best - it's very hard to armour space vehicles, because of the weight involved, so a frag load with a slight delay on the fuse would be ideal.
Quote from: pyro-manic on January 23, 2009, 01:17:29 PM
The other problem is recoil, of course. ;)
The Russians built an experimental armed satellite, which was equipped with a 37mm cannon IIRC.
EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz
Regarding projectile loads, I think a fragmentation warhead would be best - it's very hard to armour space vehicles, because of the weight involved, so a frag load with a slight delay on the fuse would be ideal.
Or lots of small KE penetrators (i.e. shotgun blasts).
Ed
Quote from: Rafael on January 23, 2009, 10:50:18 AM
I have an SF project in the oven :rolleyes: and it includes the use of guns and cannons for outer space use. Of course, mine will be gauss/rail guns, but the thing that nags at me is the nature of the projectile's loads. There will be, of course, KE and "grape" shots. But the ones I can't figure out are the explosive ones. In my backstory, explosive ordnance carry their own oxidizer/combustible mixed in so whiffingly speaking I have it covered by this little physics laws warping.
Have any of you seen/dreamed/invented anything like this ones?
Oh! and check Orionblamblam's Orion's thread, with an interesting cannon/gun armed "space cruiser" concept: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,22882.msg330513.html#msg330513
Rafa
Frankly, don't bother with normal explosives. With the speeds required for space combat any projectile (at 3 km/sec and over) will carry as much or more kinetic energy than it's own weight in TNT. That's right, fire that slug at 3000 meters per second and it will have roughly the same amount of kinetic energy as a similar mass of TNT has in explosive power. Except that that slug will give off ALL of it's power into the target, and not in a dissipating bang.
If you want to use explosives in you gun or missile projectiles, the only realistic choise is nuclear ones.
And if you want to keep it realistic, you absolutely HAVE to check out the following site:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
and for weapons:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x.html
Aaand I saw that CanisD was way ahead of me. Ah well.
Well you might find having radar fused shells like anti-aircraft gun did in WWII to be useful, it would allow a near miss to still damage the target. One factor you may want to explore is the hazardous waste of a battle, i.e. all the fragments flying around afterward. One could defeat the enemy in orbit, and still not be able to stay there because of all the flying bits. An extended battle might make simply being in orbit as dangerous as enemy, or both side might have to flee the area.
I see now the advantage of KE. But, if pyrotechnics work well in vacuum, explosives would be usable too, for example, in HEAT or SQUASH warheads, delivering whatever energy they yield solely on the point of impact, since now I understand that vacuum doesn't transmit a blast's wave front, so a purely explosive warhead wouldn't make sense.
Rafa
Quote from: Rafael on January 23, 2009, 10:50:18 AMI have an SF project in the oven :rolleyes: and it includes the use of guns and cannons for outer space use. Of course, mine will be gauss/rail guns, but the thing that nags at me is the nature of the projectile's loads. There will be, of course, KE and "grape" shots. But the ones I can't figure out are the explosive ones. In my backstory, explosive ordnance carry their own oxidizer/combustible mixed in so whiffingly speaking I have it covered by this little physics laws warping.
Have any of you seen/dreamed/invented anything like this ones?
Oh! and check Orionblamblam's Orion's thread, with an interesting cannon/gun armed "space cruiser" concept: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,22882.msg330513.html#msg330513
Scott's use of the Navy's Mk42 5.0"/127mm gun turrets on that drawing caught my eye when I looked at his work yesterday. I figured it was a novel way of adding firepower to a space vehicle but the physics involved with handling the recoil would be interesting.
I recall reading a science fiction novel many years ago where the 12 pound cannon ball proved to be the ideal weapon and they were launched by some kind of electro-magnetic rail gun device with great effect. The idea of an archaic cannonball being used in modern warfare to defeat an enemy in the vacuum of space was something that sparked the imagination. I think that same novel also described a matter transport device that was also used to beam explosive charges into the enemy vessels before detonation which was done to get around the energy shields if I remember correctly.
Quote from: Rafael on January 23, 2009, 02:26:24 PM
I see now the advantage of KE. But, if pyrotechnics work well in vacuum, explosives would be usable too, for example, in HEAT or SQUASH warheads, delivering whatever energy they yield solely on the point of impact, since now I understand that vacuum doesn't transmit a blast's wave front, so a purely explosive warhead wouldn't make sense.
Rafa
Again, why bother? With any realistic railgun or coilgun speeds you're already matching or overmatching any mere chemical energy reaction from explosives. Remember, 3 km/sec is piddling in any kind of ranged space combat.
Seriously, the only explosives worth a damn in space combat are burst charges, to allow a kinetic projectile to break up into a nice shotgun swarm, or nuclear ones. And even the nuclear ones will have to go off quite closely for them to do serious damage, but at least they will do damage in proximity explosions.
Agreed. :thumbsup:
Now, I envisioned my spaceship having a spinal-mount BFG for front-quarters-only, heavy fire. I can load everything like the above for long-range, Capital-ship engagements. But, what about orbital bombardment? besides a Rods-from-God pod attached, I would like to have said BFG also capable of striking sub-and surface targets from orbit. Any ideas?
Rafa
Quote from: MihoshiK on January 23, 2009, 01:47:03 PM
Frankly, don't bother with normal explosives. With the speeds required for space combat any projectile (at 3 km/sec and over) will carry as much or more kinetic energy than it's own weight in TNT.
If one side can fire projectiles at 3 km/s, the other side will probably have enough engine power to evade a gunshot. I think it's inevitable to use (powered and maneuverable) missiles instead. That also mitigates the problem of recoil (which would be significant on a 3 km/s projectile).
I believe that using terminally guided projectiles could be a solution, then, at least for medium-to-heavy projectiles. A sweet solution for mid-to-long range shots, where the endgame situation requires boost or vector change to adjust for drift or maneuvering of the target vessel.
Also, we're talking of gauss/railguns here. Will recoil be negligible in these kinds of weapons, assuming a very, very, very high muzzle speed and G-acceleration imparted to the mass fired?.
If any, would a coordination with flight control systems aboard be a solution, ie.: firing thrusters/grav pulses :rolleyes: to keep station?
Rafa
Any weapon that transfers energy to a projectile will have recoil, doesn't matter if it uses a powder charge or a magnetic field. Newton's third law applies (action=reaction).
A flight control system can compensate of course provided you have enough fuel.
Rheinmetall have produced a recoilless 30mm autocannon: http://www.rheinmetall-detec.com/index.php?fid=1506&lang=3&pdb=1
This kind of weapon would be worth considering.
A recoilless gun would help, but it'd be hard to design the system so that the force balance is exactly zero: you'd have to have a barrel which is completely open to the rear, which means you lose most of the propulsive force on your bullet.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and reading what you've been saying. The risks of having spent, stray rounds is too high, at least in orbit. In open space the risk of impact would be statistically diminished.
Now, I found this concept: Plasma guns. We talk and talk and talk about plasma guns but the following concept, form the book Warstrider, by William H. Keith, exposes a gun in these terms ".....Squad Support Plasma Guns, SSPGs, fire slivers of cobalt, vaporized, stripped of electrons, and ejected by an intense magfield as finger-sized bolts of plasma, hot as the core of a sun....."
The concept then calls for a slug of matter in the "fourth state". Accelerated to high speeds, as stated by another forum member, would assure a projectile packing a lot of punch, enough to deal with most hypothetical armors, and with enough temperature, prior to impact to achieve, IMO, improved behind-armor effects.
I believe the beauty of the system resides in the above underlined term: "vaporized". A slug of real hot gas, in that fluid state, could wreak havoc against and inside a target. What's better, then, it's that I assume that a plasma slug will have a limited range, that is, until it cools down, electromagnetically stabilizes itself, and then dissociates in a high speed, expanding cloud of gas.
That would take care of spent, stray rounds. What's more, range would be dependent on the acceleration imparted to the slug. The more G's, the farther it would fly, before it dissociates.
Of course this is all taking into account that I will use EM-Guns in every mount, as I stated from the beginning.
Any opinions?
Rafa
There was something I saw somewhere recently (Secret Projects forum I think) about a type of weapon called a Casana-Howitzer - basically a nuclear shaped-charge warhead that projected the bomb's energy into a focussed beam. Rather nasty...
A standard gas-jet type recoilless weapon would move your ship slightly in the direction of your target, the more you fire - the closer you get.
The compensating weight type would add more dangerous debris to your zero gravity battlefield.
Jon
Of course, I'm talking here of very advanced EM-guns, ones that can accelerate masses to a fraction of C :rolleyes:. At near relativistic speeds, any evasive maneuver would have to be taken very, very quickly.
And recoil would be managed by the ship's flight control system.
Rafa
Quote from: Rafael on January 25, 2009, 06:27:43 AM
I've been thinking about this for a while, and reading what you've been saying. The risks of having spent, stray rounds is too high, at least in orbit. In open space the risk of impact would be statistically diminished.
Now, I found this concept: Plasma guns. We talk and talk and talk about plasma guns but the following concept, form the book Warstrider, by William H. Keith, exposes a gun in these terms ".....Squad Support Plasma Guns, SSPGs, fire slivers of cobalt, vaporized, stripped of electrons, and ejected by an intense magfield as finger-sized bolts of plasma, hot as the core of a sun....."
The concept then calls for a slug of matter in the "fourth state". Accelerated to high speeds, as stated by another forum member, would assure a projectile packing a lot of punch, enough to deal with most hypothetical armors, and with enough temperature, prior to impact to achieve, IMO, improved behind-armor effects.
I believe the beauty of the system resides in the above underlined term: "vaporized". A slug of real hot gas, in that fluid state, could wreak havoc against and inside a target. What's better, then, it's that I assume that a plasma slug will have a limited range, that is, until it cools down, electromagnetically stabilizes itself, and then dissociates in a high speed, expanding cloud of gas.
That would take care of spent, stray rounds. What's more, range would be dependent on the acceleration imparted to the slug. The more G's, the farther it would fly, before it dissociates.
Of course this is all taking into account that I will use EM-Guns in every mount, as I stated from the beginning.
Any opinions?
Rafa
Don't bother. Plasma is, in essence, a REALLY hot gas. Which means that it will want to expand REALLY fast, especially in a vacuum. Sure, if you can fire it fast enough, it'll get to it's destination before dispersing much. But we're talking about a speed measured in percentages of C (lightspeed) here. IOW, it's NOT low or semi-realistic SciFi if you're using plasma cannons. Of course you can use lasers or particle beams, which are rather more grounded in reality than plasma cannons. For any kind of near future story your best bet would be lasers for point defense, railguns for short to medium range engagements, and missiles for long range engagements.
And don't forget. Anything which costs energy to use, will generate HEAT. You WILL have to get rid of it. Which is one of the reasons why stealth in space is such a ridiculous concept...
Seriously, read the Atomic Rockets site. It answers all of your questions in detail, and with easy maths as well.
Edit:
Ah, Rafe, just saw your post. Yeah, your EM guns would be seriously advanced for a plasma weapon to be viable. But then again, if you can use EM guns to fire plasma at those speeds, why bother. You can use them to fire slivers of steel at the same speed, and they would turn into plasma at the moment of contact between projectile and armor, because of the immense amount of energy in em. Plasma weapons are something which sounds really cool, but really is a dead end. At those speeds, you're not getting much gain from your plasma being sun-hot.
Quote from: pyro-manic on January 25, 2009, 11:30:35 AM
There was something I saw somewhere recently (Secret Projects forum I think) about a type of weapon called a Casana-Howitzer - basically a nuclear shaped-charge warhead that projected the bomb's energy into a focussed beam. Rather nasty...
I was part of that discussion. The Casana-Howitser is most likely a weaponisation of the Orion drive pulse bombs. It would not be a very focussed blast, but it WOULD channel a significant amount of a bombs energy into a dense and fast moving cigar shaped cloud of plasma. Dangerous to almost anything up to? (IOW, it's still classified. No real info in public domain)
Quote from: MihoshiK on January 25, 2009, 02:59:24 PM
Ah, Rafe, just saw your post. Yeah, your EM guns would be seriously advanced for a plasma weapon to be viable. But then again, if you can use EM guns to fire plasma at those speeds, why bother. You can use them to fire slivers of steel at the same speed, and they would turn into plasma at the moment of contact between projectile and armor, because of the immense amount of energy in em. Plasma weapons are something which sounds really cool, but really is a dead end. At those speeds, you're not getting much gain from your plasma being sun-hot.
Yea, I'm suddenly aware that I'm thinking in circles, here :lol: So, back to square one. I like more that last suggestion of yours. Energy will not be an issue, since my ship will have something like a zero-point quantum energy tap :lol: :lol: and will have a gravitic drive.
The weapons suite I am putting in are:
- Rail/EM guns: 2-4 mounts of small caliber (up to 40-76 mm) and 1-2 forward firing spinal/belly-mounts for capital ship engagement and/or orbital bombardment (up to 203 mm)
- Lasers. Definitely, lasers. Both for close-in work to complement the EM guns, and a big, honking ball turret.
- Missiles. Who can live without them?
- Countermeasures will include chaff, flares, EM/EW, and reflective anti-laser aerosols.
Oh! I forgot, current tech has been used to develop rail gun explosive projectiles:
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi132.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq14%2Frafaelgonzalez65%2FEMGunExplosiveProjectilePrototypeDi.jpg&hash=28a1a18f3399248a72db3086545310bab51399fc)
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi132.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq14%2Frafaelgonzalez65%2FEMGunExplosiveProjectilePrototypein.jpg&hash=b049a8a2e827cfd5f39f00d297524b50af588201)
(https://www.whatifmodellers.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi132.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq14%2Frafaelgonzalez65%2FEMGunExplosiveProjectilePrototype.jpg&hash=9ced671446c2fc0836c8c6624b090bbe2ac4fbb0)
Rafa