What Weapons work in Space?

[Parson]

One of the major weapons that gets relatively little play in Sci Fi and none here is whatever propulsion system that ship is using. Almost anything I can think of that could be used to propel a ship through space would make a fearsome weapon when pointed at another ship, station, or perhaps even a planet. But planets are paricularly vulnerable to kinetic weapons. Any civilization advanced enough to mount a fleet of ships could wipe out a planet with relatively little trouble by "firing" space rocks at it.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Parson

One of the major weapons that gets relatively little play in Sci Fi and none here is whatever propulsion system that ship is using.

Have you ever read Larry Niven's first Kzin story (and the first short story he tried to sell) called "The Warriors"?

The peace-loving humans who have banished violence with the use of drugs from auto-docs unexpectedly make first contact with a race of feline carnivores who live only for battle and for the kill. The human ship is equipped with no weapons.

[Parson]

One thing that seems to have been missing in this discussion is that any foreseeable space drive would have some horrific implications as a weapon in space. Rarely do I read a SF novel that even considers the effect the drive would have on any ship or station in the vincinity of the "tail wash."

The "tail wash" could in some cases be an effective weapon against a planet. But then again any group who could mount a fleet could literally wipe out a planet's civilization simply by "throwing" space rocks at it.

[Parson]

Dave,

In fact I have read it -- I believe -- I've read some of those stories anyway. The more I think about it, I picked up somewhere after the first story. It was an interesting premise, but I found it grew old over time.

I hope I have been able to delete my redundant post, but if not excuse me please.

[Tau Zero]

Particle beam weapons would work well only in space. Any beam, especially a coherent one, would make a devastating weapon. The problem is that in proton and electron beams, the particles repulse each other, so the beam spreads out with distance. Also a magnetic field would bend the beam and a nuclear explosion would disperse it. These could be used as point defenses against beam weapons. So a neutron beam would be preferable. Here, the problem becomes how to aim and focus the beam. Since the particles are neutral, you can't use magnetic fields for this purpose. Figure out how to focus a neutron beam and you've got a real space weapon!

[sidewinder]

Brute force and ignorance works best you don’t need to be precise when throwing something the size of a London bus at your enemy.

[Tau Zero]

Originally Posted by sidewinder

Brute force and ignorance works best you don’t need to be precise when throwing something the size of a London bus at your enemy.

It depends. It is not a good weapon for ship-to-ship space battles. Throwing a 10 ton block at another ship is not easy. Recoil from moving that mass affects your movement through space. Another ship can easily see a large mass coming at them and avoid it. Even if the block has an engine to move it, acceleration of that large a mass is slow and guiding it is slower.

Throwing a large mass at a planet could have serious effects if you can give the mass enough velocity. Enough, that is, for it to survive passing through the atmosphere, while maintaining enough velocity to do kinetic damage. The added problems are targeting; you need some way of guiding you object through space and the atmosphere at high speed to hit relatively close to your target. You'll need a guidance system that can survive atmosphere entry and be capable to maneuver the object to some degree.

I think that throwing a large block at anything is not really a very good weapon.

[Off-worlder]

I am always under the impression that using projectile weapons, bullets, artillery rounds, etc. would never do any good in space especially if they are none explosive sabot type rounds. As the vacuum of space (technically a void not a vacuum) is full of rocks ranging from less than a mm up to many km, whizzing around at many hundreds, if not thousands, of meters per second that have enormous impact energy and we can already proctect our space vessels from these pretty well, anti-ballistic glass, etc. Well, at least from the small ones. So apart from HE or nuke rounds I am not sure what use projectile weapons would be?

Self propelled projectile rounds, missiles, etc. Are a different kettle of fish.

I also think the reveres reaction of a projectle weapon being fired into space is being taken a little too seriously. The ship that fired the projectile would only go shooting off at the same speed as the projectile if it weighed the same as the projectile. Since the vessel doing the firing is likely to be many hundreds, if not thousands of times of greater mass than the projectile it is firing the reaction will be proportional. Though I think rapid firing weapons would pose a stability problem.

Maybe self propelled rounds with some form of HESH (high explosive squash head, used by tanks today) that use some form of chemical\metal energy to punture a hull with a stream of shaped charge molten metal that would be devastating, even against the strongest armour.

If you remember the Sulaco from Aliens, then there is a military tactics guide I saw somewhere on the web concerning this ship, and how it was used in battle. It said there would be no such thing as Star Trek style phaser battles at a thousand yards, but more stealth techniques such as radar invisible nets, 10km wide that ensnared ships and hindered movement and sensors. Plus it used emp\plasma weapons to fry electronics and projectile weapons for close support. Missiles were also included, but I cannot remember the specifics it was a long time ago.

I think energy weapons will be limited to stations and capital ships due to their power demands and relative size of power units, support structures, cooling plants, etc.

Oh, and never forget the old mention of a thousand missiles. Have a thousand ships fire a missile at 'any' other ship, or 500 fire two missiles each, so'on and so forth, there is nothing that can protect itself from such an assault.

update - some info on the Sulaco on Wikipedia, but cannot post the link. I stand corrected on some things.

[Paige Turner]

Spearguns work in space.

[steve12553]

Originally Posted by Paige Turner

Spearguns work in space.

Absolutely. ANy sort of projectile has no air hence no friction losses and will continue at the same speed until it is stopped by an object. You could fire a spear gun through a thin enough hull or space suit from 10,000 miles away and not lose any velocity if you could aim it accurately.

[Paige Turner]

Only problem is that in a vacuum, there would be no stabilizing drag, and if any rotational enertia was applied to the spear, it would slowly flip end-over-end as it went along. So you'd have a pretty good chance of it striking its target sideways. It would still leave a mark, but wouldn't have the murderous penetrating effect we were probably hoping for.

[Off-worlder]

Spear guns? In space? What are you hoping to hit, a star fish?

God I crack myself up.

I have been working on that all day.

[Paige Turner]

Originally Posted by Off-worlder

Spear guns? In space? What are you hoping to hit, a star fish?

God I crack myself up.

I have been working on that all day.

Oh, okay. I had to read that a few times. Star, because it's in space, and fish, because it's a speargun, right? Okay… okay.

That's pretty funny.

[steve12553]

Originally Posted by Paige Turner

Oh, okay. I had to read that a few times. Star, because it's in space, and fish, because it's a speargun, right? Okay… okay.

That's pretty funny.

It would have been it he [(she or it.) (Check profile information)] hadn't overexpalined the punchline. Remember less is more