From: pksuk@mothra.syr.EDU (Peter K. Suk)
Subject: Re: Weapons systems?
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.science
Summary: space combat wepons systems types
Keywords: space combat weapons
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 17:56:23 EST

----- max@west.darkside.com (Erik Max Francis) writes:

>I've been thinking about combat in space, and am wondering if anyone has 
>come up with any novel weapons/delivery systems.
>
>So far I have:
>
>    o laser beams
>    o particle beams
>    o kinetic weapons (shells)
>    o missiles
>    o torpedos (nuclear missiles)
>
>Anything else pop into mind?

You missed one totally different "beam" type weapon.  I touch that 
one later.  You also missed:

Mines - The author of _How to Make War_ opined that Japan
	could have been subjugated by the mine-warfare campaign
	in place at the end of WWII.  Traditionally _very_ cost effective.
	Not popular with the brass, however.  (seems cowardly)

	Of course, with sophisticated AI, the line between these,
	missles, and robot-fighters will blur.

Also, there is a lot of room for variation in particle beams.
In addtition to the commonly used particles and anti-particles, 
there are the more exotic short-lived ones.  One of these (a muon,
meson??  A physics friend told me about this, but I forgot)
has as low a cross-section as a Neutrino.  So, if you time things
right (BIG if, but this is sci-fi) You can shoot these through
any type of armor.  Then they decay into a spray of ordinary 
particles.  You could probably fry the crew this way, without
significant damage to the ship.  Great for privateering.  

<<<< Sci-Fi Savants, skip next paragraph. >>>>

As Larry Niven points out, Spacecraft drive systems are pretty deadly
in themselves.  The more efficient a reaction drive is, the more it
resembles a damn good particle beam, laser beam, or projectile cannon.
(Sort of the whole point.  The more energy you shoot out the reaction
mass with, the harder you accelerate.  The more efficiently you do 
this, the more efficiently you accelerate.)

However, this applies to Non-reaction drive systems as well.  If
you can generate gravity fields of varying geometry to drive your
ship, you can do nasty things to other ships.  You could accelerate
the enemy's hull.  If you spin a ship fast enough, you will
Cuisinart the crew.  You could accelerate 1/2 of the hull and
not the other, or accelerate both halves unevenly.  (This 
happened in a recent ST:tng episode with warp drive fields.)

Also imagine generating gravity-wave solitons.  (Self-reinforcing
packets of waves.)  No armor could stop these, and if they were
powerful enough, they could also cuisinart the crew, and any delicate
devices in their ship.  However, if materials sciences were advanced
enough, their hull would be unharmed and yours to use.  (Also pulled
from the same ST:tng episode, only with warp-fields.)

Lastly, stealth is probably the best weapon in space combat.  To take
a line from _Hitchhiker's_, space is BIG.  If a ship were:

	1) made from EM-radiation Absorbent Materials
	2) was MOSTLY surrounded by a shell that was cooled
		to 3 deg Kelvin

Then, from MOST angles, this ship would be undetectable except by
starlight occlusion.  And finding things by occlusion is very difficult.

If such a warship snuck up on you, into firing range, you'd probably die 
a very quickly.
(Presumably, weapons tech in this day and age would have outstripped
defensive technology with a vengeance.  But that is another discussion.)

--Peter Kwangjun Suk

(P.S.  Try looking up the recent "Re: Star Wars" posts in this
group.  They address all of this stuff in much more detail.)

(P.P.S.  Weaponry for planetary-scale siege is also very interesting.
That was kind of covered in the recent discussion about destroying 
life on earth, but not really.  No practical discussions about "what
if some inhabitants objected" occured.)
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