Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

[megaplayboy]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

And then they broke the plausibility by having the Cylons hack into Galactica while her onboard systems were networked to more quickly calculate an FTL jump. I'm sorry' date=' but just because you network a bunch of systems doesn't make them vulnerable to outside attacks (unless the Cylons can inject signals into the interconnecting cables of the system).[/quote']

 

Don't the Cylons have infiltrators in the ranks, though?

[megaplayboy]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

on a tangential note, centripetal acceleration is still velocity^2 divided by turn radius, right?

I'm coming up with a pretty low velocity for engagements at ranges of 1 light second (IOW, "R" = 3x10^8 m, "A" ~ 10m/s^2, solve for V when V^2 ~ 3 x 10 ^9 m^2/s^2, v comes out to about 1.73 x 10 ^5 m/sec, or about 15x earth escape velocity, or a little more than one half of one tenth of one percent of light speed.) in order to not exceed a gee-force greater than 1.

If we assumed robotic-piloted missiles and craft could readily manage accelerations up to 100 gees, then you'd have velocities about 10 x greater--still pretty slow by rubber sci fi standards, but dazzlingly fast by hard sci fi standards.

[Maur]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

Don't the Cylons have infiltrators in the ranks' date=' though?[/quote']

 

Yes, but the episode had the Cylons hacking in from outside of Galactica and nothing to do with Boomer or other still unknown infiltrators.

[Old Man]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

And then they broke the plausibility by having the Cylons hack into Galactica while her onboard systems were networked to more quickly calculate an FTL jump. I'm sorry' date=' but just because you network a bunch of systems doesn't make them vulnerable to outside attacks (unless the Cylons can inject signals into the interconnecting cables of the system).[/quote']

 

Unless one of the networked systems has sensors attached to it, which seems likely given the task at hand.

[Maur]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

That would be like hacking into one of our carriers via its radar array...

[Spence]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

That would be like hacking into one of our carriers via its radar array...

 

And you have a problem with that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sundog]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

That would be like hacking into one of our carriers via its radar array...

 

 

That's actually a theoretical possibility.

 

The difficulties of actually doing it are vast, of course.

[Markdoc]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

That's fine.

 

For any other readers, for the record, Burnside's Zeroth Law of space combat states that Science fiction fans relate more to human beings than to silicon chips. That is, while it might make more logical sense in your SF novel or SF RPG to have an interplanetary battle waged between groups of computer controlled spacecraft, it would be infinitely more boring than a battle between groups of human crewed spacecraft.

 

This is why in Battlestar Galactica you see sweating human beings in their Vipers, instead of scenes of control computers blinking their lights and whirring their disk drives.

 

Ian Banks has addressed this in his culture books, where, in fact, all the space combat *is* between computers. Basically the human angle is delivered through the humans/aliens who sweat through the buildup to any fight.

 

Basically his space battles go like this.

 

Launch your ships. Spend a couple of weeks speeding at FTL travel to your target. Either: battle is joined and over in a few seconds or one fleet is obviously much stronger, at which point the computers on the losing side run the odds and go "D00d!!! Pwnzred!??!!" and surrender - informing their human passengers a millisecond later, that the battle is over and they lost.

 

It makes good sense, but if you want to read about epic space battles, probably not what you want.

 

cheers, Mark

[Beast]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

isn't that what happened when the Israelies bombed the Syrians a few months ago

they hacked their radar and just had it not see the Israeli planes

 

That would be like hacking into one of our carriers via its radar array...

[Inu]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

Ian Banks has addressed this in his culture books, where, in fact, all the space combat *is* between computers. Basically the human angle is delivered through the humans/aliens who sweat through the buildup to any fight.

 

Basically his space battles go like this.

 

Launch your ships. Spend a couple of weeks speeding at FTL travel to your target. Either: battle is joined and over in a few seconds or one fleet is obviously much stronger, at which point the computers on the losing side run the odds and go "D00d!!! Pwnzred!??!!" and surrender - informing their human passengers a millisecond later, that the battle is over and they lost.

 

It makes good sense, but if you want to read about epic space battles, probably not what you want.

 

cheers, Mark

Rather, it does make for rather epic space battles -- just in a very different way. The emphasis is placed on the buildup, not the shooting. Getting the forces in position, figuring out what the enemy is doing... in my opinion, it's all very epic. Just not space opera epic. ^_-

 

But that's semantics, I admit. I find his space combat quite riveting, and refreshing in its lack of focus on shooting.

 

Sort of a corollary of Burnside's law: since we find humans more interesting than computers, the action will tend to focus on where the humans are.

 

(But then you get Excession where over half the book focussed on the artificial intelligences controling the ships. =) The humans were secondary characters at best, and frankly, I didn't really like most of them, preferring to read about the ships!)

[Doc]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

Ian Banks has addressed this in his culture books, where, in fact, all the space combat *is* between computers. Basically the human angle is delivered through the humans/aliens who sweat through the buildup to any fight.

 

Basically his space battles go like this.

 

Launch your ships. Spend a couple of weeks speeding at FTL travel to your target. Either: battle is joined and over in a few seconds or one fleet is obviously much stronger, at which point the computers on the losing side run the odds and go "D00d!!! Pwnzred!??!!" and surrender - informing their human passengers a millisecond later, that the battle is over and they lost.

 

It makes good sense, but if you want to read about epic space battles, probably not what you want.

 

cheers, Mark

 

 

 

I didn't read the book, but it doesn't seem very realistic to me. Battles will probably be staged without so much preparation (at least, from one side). A spaceship is a very small object in space and so even a space armada would probably be very hard to detect before it is very near. Then, even at at speed nearing the speed of light, it would take years to send reinforcements to an attacked system. Ha well, but you talked about FTL... Hum... But even then, nothing prevent the attacking army to bombard a planet during the weeks needed for the ennemy to arrive. Battles will probably take place around planets, due to the vastness of space, unless the defender is able to detect the incoming attack when it still is far away and send some preemptive retaliation...

 

Moreover, I don't see how a state could possibly send military forces to some place just to have them surrender after a computer calculation... It just isn't the logic of people in power. At least, the forces would withdraw and concentrate and reorganise somewhere else.

 

Well anyway, as I told, I didn't read the books and I'm talking about my own preferences, wich are based around a solid human and scientific realism.

 

By the way, this by far the longest thread I ever wrote in. I'm still new here, but, I mean, it all began when Corpse wanted to know about the damage dice for tactical versus strategical nukes. Then we talked about US nuclear policy, Vladimir Putin, nukes in space, Battlestar Galactica... Gee...

[Inu]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

I didn't read the book, but it doesn't seem very realistic to me. Battles will probably be staged without so much preparation (at least, from one side). A spaceship is a very small object in space and so even a space armada would probably be very hard to detect before it is very near. Then, even at at speed nearing the speed of light, it would take years to send reinforcements to an attacked system. Ha well, but you talked about FTL... Hum... But even then, nothing prevent the attacking army to bombard a planet during the weeks needed for the ennemy to arrive. Battles will probably take place around planets, due to the vastness of space, unless the defender is able to detect the incoming attack when it still is far away and send some preemptive retaliation...

 

Moreover, I don't see how a state could possibly send military forces to some place just to have them surrender after a computer calculation... It just isn't the logic of people in power. At least, the forces would withdraw and concentrate and reorganise somewhere else.

 

Well anyway, as I told, I didn't read the books and I'm talking about my own preferences, wich are based around a solid human and scientific realism.

 

By the way, this by far the longest thread I ever wrote in. I'm still new here, but, I mean, it all began when Corpse wanted to know about the damage dice for tactical versus strategical nukes. Then we talked about US nuclear policy, Vladimir Putin, nukes in space, Battlestar Galactica... Gee...

Ian M. Banks' Culture books are very, very, very high-powered SF. In many ways, the Culture is a hard take on the Federation from Star Trek -- there are no issues of supply, because there's simply enough power to create anything people could possibly want. The cost of sending ships around the galaxy (or even to other galaxies) doesn't come into the equation at all. If people are willing to go (and the ship is willing, since it's governed by an AI with full citizenship), then it can go!

 

The science isn't exactly hard, but what he HAS done is think through the repercussions of having access to particular technologies (which is why I say it's a take on the Federation; the technologies possessed by the Culture are very similar to the Federation, but the followthrough is greater). So it's... rigid sci-fi?

[Markdoc]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

(But then you get Excession where over half the book focussed on the artificial intelligences controling the ships. =) The humans were secondary characters at best' date=' and frankly, I didn't really like most of them, preferring to read about the ships!)[/quote']

 

Strangely enough, I just finished reading Excession on Monday night

 

Not his best, I think, but an OK read nonetheless - and you're right, the only major human character that was at all interesting was Genar-Hofoen and he is - to be honest - a bit of an immature, self-absorbed pr***.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

I didn't read the book' date=' but it doesn't seem very realistic to me. Battles will probably be staged without so much preparation (at least, from one side). A spaceship is a very small object in space and so even a space armada would probably be very hard to detect before it is very near.[/quote']

 

Nope, the physics has already been done on this. Spaceships absent some sort of currently unknown cloaking technology will stand out like little suns in space. If you want to hide, you have to hide behind something.

 

Then' date=' even at at speed nearing the speed of light, it would take years to send reinforcements to an attacked system. Ha well, but you talked about FTL... Hum... But even then, nothing prevent the attacking army to bombard a planet during the weeks needed for the ennemy to arrive. Battles will probably take place around planets, due to the vastness of space, unless the defender is able to detect the incoming attack when it still is far away and send some preemptive retaliation...[/quote']

 

In the case in point, both forces were racing to a particular point in space and great deal was made of the need to arrive precisely so the other guys didn't have a couple of week to do what they wanted.

 

Moreover' date=' I don't see how a state could possibly send military forces to some place just to have them surrender after a computer calculation... It just isn't the logic of people in power. At least, the forces would withdraw and concentrate and reorganise somewhere else.[/quote']

 

Basically, that's only possible if you are faster. By the time you see the enemy and think "gee, they outnumber us and are better armed and faster - the simulation says we have a 10e-6 chance chance of victory".

 

It certainly wouldn't be the first time forces have been sent out and then surrendered without firing a shot. And in this case, the computer minds involved can run millions of simulations of possible tactics and outcomes in an eyeblink. If almost all those simulations say "You lose - and die" then they surrender. Only common sense, really.

 

And certainly, in the context of the book, it made sense.

 

Well anyway, as I told, I didn't read the books and I'm talking about my own preferences, wich are based around a solid human and scientific realism.

 

By the way, this by far the longest thread I ever wrote in. I'm still new here, but, I mean, it all began when Corpse wanted to know about the damage dice for tactical versus strategical nukes. Then we talked about US nuclear policy, Vladimir Putin, nukes in space, Battlestar Galactica... Gee...

 

Pretty typical, I'm afraid.

 

cheers, Mark

[megaplayboy]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

Nope, the physics has already been done on this. Spaceships absent some sort of currently unknown cloaking technology will stand out like little suns in space. If you want to hide, you have to hide behind something.

 

 

 

 

three caveats: one, obviously, an FTL ship would be completely undetectable on the EM spectrum; two, due to Lorentz contraction, a ship moving at speeds extremely close to lightspeed would appear to be much shorter than it actually was; three, what if the means of propulsion didn't throw out vast amounts of heated gas as fuel, but instead used something like gravity waves(IOW, some kind of gravitic drive, assuming it's feasible in the sci fi setting)--there might still be some means of detecting it, but perhaps not at such great distances.

[Spence]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

Ian Banks has addressed this in his culture books, where, in fact, all the space combat *is* between computers. Basically the human angle is delivered through the humans/aliens who sweat through the buildup to any fight.

 

Basically his space battles go like this.

 

Launch your ships. Spend a couple of weeks speeding at FTL travel to your target. Either: battle is joined and over in a few seconds or one fleet is obviously much stronger, at which point the computers on the losing side run the odds and go "D00d!!! Pwnzred!??!!" and surrender - informing their human passengers a millisecond later, that the battle is over and they lost.

 

It makes good sense, but if you want to read about epic space battles, probably not what you want.

 

cheers, Mark

 

NNooooooo!!

 

Broadsides....I want broadsides!!!!!!

 

 

 

[Inu]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

Strangely enough' date=' I just finished reading [i']Excession[/i] on Monday night

 

Not his best, I think, but an OK read nonetheless - and you're right, the only major human character that was at all interesting was Genar-Hofoen and he is - to be honest - a bit of an immature, self-absorbed pr***.

 

cheers, Mark

That said, his inclusion was quite enlightening about various elements of Culture physiology and society. THAT was interesting.

[Nyrath]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

A spaceship is a very small object in space and so even a space armada would probably be very hard to detect before it is very near.

Well, that turns out not to be the case.

 

If you are dealing with non-FTL spacecraft, within the limits imposed by the laws of physics, There Ain't No Stealth In Space.

 

The only way to get stealth is by science fictional means. Like FTL or some kind of heat radiator that dumps heat into hyperspace, an alternate dimension, or something like that.

[Nyrath]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

NNooooooo!!

Broadsides....I want broadsides!!!!!!

So read the Honor Harrington novels by David Weber. His FTL system enforces broadsides.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

Well, that turns out not to be the case.

 

If you are dealing with non-FTL spacecraft, within the limits imposed by the laws of physics, There Ain't No Stealth In Space.

 

The only way to get stealth is by science fictional means. Like FTL or some kind of heat radiator that dumps heat into hyperspace, an alternate dimension, or something like that.

 

well, if your drive doesn't dump heat into space(gravitics or somesuch), and you have a hyperefficient hull that radiates minimal heat(not that implausible, really), and you have a sophisticated imaging technology similar to the "invisibility cloak" that the private sector and military is working on, then you have a minimal heat signature and don't show up on normal visual scanning. All that's required is one technology which is not theoretically possible at the moment but which is not absolutely ruled out, either.

[Nyrath]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

three caveats: one' date=' obviously, an FTL ship would be completely undetectable on the EM spectrum; two, due to Lorentz contraction, a ship moving at speeds extremely close to lightspeed would appear to be much shorter than it actually was; three, what if the means of propulsion didn't throw out vast amounts of heated gas as fuel, but instead used something like gravity waves(IOW, some kind of gravitic drive, assuming it's feasible in the sci fi setting)--there might still be some means of detecting it, but perhaps not at such great distances.[/quote']

Well, not quite.

 

[1] Yes, certain types of FTL are undetectable in the EM spectrum. The draw back is that if they are undetectable by any means, there is nothing you can do to prevent the Blortch Empire's war fleet from appearing around your home planet and carpet bombing it into a glassy radioactive sphere. So you need to postulate some way of detecting them.

 

[2] The Lorentz contraction will do little to reduce the heat signature of your spacecraft. However, if your ships are moving relativistically (i.e., near the speed of light), the fact that they are moving almost as fast as the photons of heat revealing their presence will mean that any detectors cannot see where your ships are now, only where they were. The image of the ships will appear to move faster than light due to the optical illusion. This means if the ships are coming down your throat, you will only have a few minutes warning instead of a few days.

 

[3] A gravidic or other drive that has no exhaust plume will still have a thermal signature from the power plant. Accelerating a ship will require X amount of energy, regardless of whether the energy comes from a chemical rocket, a fusion torch, or a gravity drive using electricity from a nuclear reactor. Due to the second law of thermodynamics, there will be some waste heat, and it can be detected. Especially since it will be against the deep space background sky which is at a chilly three degrees Kelvin.

[Nyrath]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

well' date=' if your drive doesn't dump heat into space(gravitics or somesuch), and you have a hyperefficient hull that radiates minimal heat(not that implausible, really), and you have a sophisticated imaging technology similar to the "invisibility cloak" that the private sector and military is working on, then you have a minimal heat signature and don't show up on normal visual scanning. All that's required is one technology which is not theoretically possible at the moment but which is not absolutely ruled out, either.[/quote']

I think you have not thought things out fully. If the hull does not radiate any heat, this means that any heat generated inside the hull will stay inside the hull. This includes waste heat from the power plant, drive, and the body heat of all the crew members (if you have been stuck in a closed room with too many people you know what I mean).

 

So the temperature will eventually rise to a point where the bulkheads will start glowing, all flammable objects will catch fire, and the people will die agonizing deaths.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

I think you have not thought things out fully. If the hull does not radiate any heat' date=' this means that any heat generated inside the hull will stay inside the hull. This includes waste heat from the power plant, drive, and the body heat of all the crew members [i'](if you have been stuck in a closed room with too many people you know what I mean)[/i].

 

So the temperature will eventually rise to a point where the bulkheads will start glowing, all flammable objects will catch fire, and the people will die agonizing deaths.

 

Well, it could be like WW2 subs(which surfaced to recharge their batteries and refresh their air); when out of range of enemy detection, safely vent the accumulated heat, then seal up again when going into a combat zone. You could also have a "sponge layer" of interior heat insulation, which has a certain safe tolerance threshold before venting becomes necessary. If the power generator is of a variety to generate minimal waste heat, then it's certainly plausible(to me, anyway) that a ship that doesn't use "torch" propulsion could cruise along for a day or two without baking the crew inside.

[Maur]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

[2] The Lorentz contraction will do little to reduce the heat signature of your spacecraft. However, if your ships are moving relativistically (i.e., near the speed of light), the fact that they are moving almost as fast as the photons of heat revealing their presence will mean that any detectors cannot see where your ships are now, only where they were. The image of the ships will appear to move faster than light due to the optical illusion. This means if the ships are coming down your throat, you will only have a few minutes warning instead of a few days.

 

If you are moving near the speed of light (or any appreciable percentage of said speed) then the light (heat, rf, uv, etc...) will head away from you at the speed of light, but be doppler shifted in wavelength due to your speed. Neither you, nor the light you give off will appear to violate the speed of light in any frame of reference.

[Nyrath]

Re: Tac-nukes vs. Nuclear Warheads

 

If you are moving near the speed of light (or any appreciable percentage of said speed) then the light (heat' date=' rf, uv, etc...) will head away from you at the speed of light, but be doppler shifted in wavelength due to your speed. Neither you, nor the light you give off will appear to violate the speed of light in any frame of reference.[/quote']

I mean that they will have the illusion of travelling faster than light.

 

http://www.stsci.edu/ftp/science/m87/press.txt

 

HUBBLE DETECTS FASTER-THAN-LIGHT MOTION IN GALAXY M87

 

Astronomers reported today discovering clouds which appear to

move many times faster than the speed of light, shooting out

from the region of a black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy.

These results help explain the nature of distant quasars and

``BL Lac'' objects.

 

``We see almost a dozen clouds which appear to be moving out from the

galaxy's center at between four and six times the speed of light.

These are all located in a narrow jet of gas streaming out from the

region of the black hole at the galaxy's center," said Dr. John Biretta

of the Space Telescope Science Institute. ``We believe this apparent

speed translates into an actual velocity just slightly below that of light

itself."

 

Biretta and his colleagues Duccio Macchetto, William Sparks, and

Eric Perlman announced the results at a meeting of the American

Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.