Re: Fusion Rockets and Missiles

Bertil Sez:

[Maneuvering ships will be easy to detect]

>   If they burn all the time, yes. But considering the low endurances I suspect
> that most ships will coast along most of the time.

Yes.  They will coast.  But during combat you will most likely be trying
to maneuver in some fashion.

>   If you are close to a planet, the ship can either run its CG lifters, or
> not, or run them at fractional power. That will change its vector without
> any active emissions.

Contra Grav lifters should be detectable by fairly low tech densiometers.

>   In old Mayday you got a 1 light second/100 minutes vector when you passed
> within 1 light second from a planet. Differences enough to make a difference
> for combat purposes are (if Mayday is correct) available futher out.

A missile built for space ought to take gravitational wells into account
in it's programming.

> > All right, now that you have this baby closing in, what do you
> > need?  A proximity fuse.  Well, you can use a densiometer to do
> > that if the IR has gone off line.  I'd prefer to avoid using an
> > active radar as a fuse.  It would make the missile easier to find,
> > and it can be fooled by a chaff cloud (Sand Caster).
>
>   The trouble is that densitometers with that range might be rarer, more
> expensive and more hightech in TNE. The same holds for neutrino sensors,
> so that leaves active proximity fuses.

Well, they were bloody cheap in Trav.  1000 Cr for a densiometer, and
1000 Cr for a neutrino sensor.  (JTAS 21 Missile Suppliment)

> > Also, Bertil mentioned the idea of rolling bombs off the loading
> > bay manually to attack undefended targets.  Why get so complicated?
> > Strapped to the back end of your ship is the biggest bad-assed
> > version of a fusion gun you ever imagined.  We are talking about a
> > fusion gun that has a back blast like a SATURN V for heavens sake!
>
>   Undefended is relative. If you go low enough to use the drives, even
> Captain Hornblower with his TL3 Naval Gun could put a lucky shot in your
> thin-hulled ship. If you stay on 3000m and use laser guided bombs you are
> out of his reach.

Actually, not many TL3 Naval guns could elevate that well...  But my
guess is that the plasma plume of the engines is going to be equivalent
to a HEAVY fusion gun with a range of several kilometers.  If it isn't
then I'd imagine a bit of fooling with the drives could make it at LEAST
as effective as an FGMP-15 or so...  And don't forget:  The old FGMP
had about as much firepower as a 12"  High velocity naval gun...  :-)
- --
Scott 2G Kellogg
"I have some people I have to slam in this song"  -- Metlay