George William Herbert ([email removed]) sez:
> Scott Kellogg repeated one of the most oft-repeated and
> least true beliefs about laser weapons: "You just wave
> them around the target and burn them." That's unfortunately
> wrong, and here's why.
Hm... I know little about lasers, but from what I've heard,
and from some of the details of the previous post, I think you're a
little off here.
> The concept of the "beam" laser is often thought to be the
> best weapon by people who don't understand how laser weapons
> usually damage a target. It isn't. Pulse lasers are much,
> much more effective.
A beam laser is very "accurate" in the sense of actually making a
connection with the target, but obviously will cut a swath rather than
drilling a hole.
> Presume you have two lasers, one beam, one pulse, that put out
> the same amount of energy per second. Say that this is about
> oh say enough energy to boil 25 cm^3 of water.
Game system check: I don't archive TML digests, but I believe
the previous poster mentioned drilling through a 7cm metal plate or
something. I'm probably way off with the numbers, but I definitely
got the impression that the average traveller laser weapon has more
power than boiling twenty-five cubic centimeters of water in one
second.
> [discussion of a pulse laser vaporizing a cubic centimeter
> of flesh deleted]
Note that the laser probably has to be "tuned" to flesh, to a
degree, to get maximum wound potential. This would also tend to trade
off on effectiveness vs. armor. It could be tuned the other way, of
course (armor-piercing lasers anybody? :-)
> Sound painful? Would be... Ok, hit someone else with the
> beam laser. Now, since the weapon isn't being held steady,
> and the beam is continuous, its impact is spread around a bit.
You're making some assumptions about the time compression
factor here. You stated before, each puts out enough energy to boil
25cm^3 in one second. Here you've moved to the assumption that the
pulse laser puts it out all in one fraction of a second. This is
reasonable, but make it clear... What fraction of a second? 1/10?
So now you have a pulse laser with 10 times the intensity vs a beam
laser with 10 times the duration.
> Personally, I'll take a pulse laser. Can you run it
> continously at low-power mode to act as its own targeting aid?
> Yes, sure, no problem if you design it right.
This is something I always found really silly about classic
traveller, the lack of a built-in "targeting" laser on a beam laser.
On a pulse-laser, on the other hand, you're probably going to need a
separate laser for targeting.
> Will firing it at the second it is held steady on the target
> be easier than with a laser-sighted rifle or pistol? Nope.
> Same problem, though you won't get recoil after you fire.
Yes and no. I have a friend who sells firearms for a living
and is seriously into them as a hobby, who likes to say that no
marksman is more accurate than the weapon. Taken another way, no
weapon is less accurate than the marksman firing it. Obviously there
are exceptions - for example extreme long range - but it generally
holds true that a well built and maintained firearm will cause a very
small fraction of deviation from the target, compared to the marksman.
So a laser, being more accurate, still has to deal with the
steadiness of the user's hand, the hand-eye coordination for
targeting, etc.
On the other hand, a laser has no recoil, and gives a
perfectly flat and straight beam. This makes it excellent at long
ranges by comparison, and probably makes it somewhat better at shorter
ranges, particularly (in both cases) where repeating fire is used (no
adjusting for recoil).
A comment on the difficulty of evading a laser, remarked upon
by the previous poster. Try playing paintball, a combat-style game
using CO2-propelled, paint-filled gelatin capsules. These capsules
move at just under 300 feet per second (if they move any faster, don't
play, it's unsafe). MUCH slower than, say, a 9mm pistol round.
Should be rather easy to evade, eh? Have fun. Make sure your clothes
are old ones you won't worry about getting paint on.
Although it is *barely* possible to see a paintball coming and
duck it (easiest at long range), it is much harder than you might
think. With paintballs, as with bullets and lasers, the best way to
dodge them is to not be there.
And, at close range, your attacker will get a shot at you
quite a bit before you can get behind some cover. The main thing that
keeps these games going as long as they do (which isn't that long) is
the relative inaccuracy of the paintball guns, and the tendencies
among players to sneak up from behind cover and/or pop away at each
other from extreme ranges forever.
Steven J. Owens