One obvious use for the short range highly efficient X-ray lasers is in
defense against fighters and missiles, both of which need to be close to
attack. Range isn't needed, and much better firepower is available without
gravitic focusing. In fact, for missile defense it might be advantageous to
put more than one laser in a turret. Hers's a TL15 turret design that has
three lasers, each of which fires at 800 per turn. Three shots at -5 Diff...
can it miss????
This system uses one beam pointer and one HPG for all three lasers. If a
separate beam pointer and HPG are used, the power drops to about 200 MJ, still
adequate for missile defense.
With a little geometry, I determined that each focal array has a diameter of
1.65 meters. This makes effective range 5.5 hexes. The focal arrays are
built to fire at 800 shots per turn.
Discharge Energy 430 MJ (each), Input Energy 506 MJ (each)
Beam Pointer (5 Hex) 1.5 tons 1.5 kl .15MCr
Focal Arrays 22.07 tons 22.07 kl 4.414MCr
HPG 35.42 tons 17.71 kl .1771MCr
This totals 58.99 tons, 4.7411 MCr, and Draws 675 MW at maximum rate of fire.
Performance is:
5: 52-1/17 10: 29-1/9 20: 14-1/5 40: 7-1/2
Its pretty crummy at long range, but with three shots, each at -5 Diff, it
probably wont miss. Firing every .75 seconds... if YOU were a fighter pilot,
would you go anywhere near this thing??? :)
Ted Baltz
[email removed]