Re: Real Space Combat Help:

At 01:06 AM 4/9/97 -0500, you wrote:
<snip>

H'lo, Mark.  I'll try to field some of these in hopes that I'll help a
little.  Sorry, but not a clue of an answer for questions 1 and 2. With
re:
question 2:  with a laser, aren't you essentially focusing energy at a
single point of the hull and trying to burn through.  Given enough
energy,
you would burn through and start burning beyond the hull.

>	3.  Which sort of missile warhead would be better suited for
space
>combat?  Nuke or kinetic kill?

Given the difficulty of targeting a spaceship (a small object) in space
(a
kinda large area), I would think the nuke would be better.  Sort of on
the
grounds that you can just get it close and get a kill.	Remember, no
shock
effect as no air to form a shock wave, but you still get a burst of high
energy radiation that could go through the hull.  I rather liked the
idea
from Traveller 2300 AD of using the missile's nuclear warhead as the
power
source for a bomb-pumped X-ray or Gamma Ray Laser.  You get the missile
close...the warhead goes off... for a split second, a lensing/focusing
element channels the radiation into a coherent, focused laser.

>	4.  I've heard that it would be a good idea to depressurize a
warship
>before going into combat (the crew would be in space suits).  Why would
>that help?

This way if the hull is punctured, you avoid a catastrophic
decompression
and all the problems that go along with it.  You also save the air for
use
again later.  

>	5.  How would one target a enemy ship in space (realistically
that is)?

If you don't invent some kind of exotic technology, i.e. a Maser
scanner,
then you're probably using active or passive radar or ladar.  Sort of
like
airplane targeting.  The problem then is given the distances involved,
if
you're far enough away, speed of light becomes a limiting factor.  By
the
time you get the returned signal, the target could have evaded.

>I'd love to hear your responses.
>Later,
>Mark S.

Hope this helped a little.
_______________________________________

Michael Kwan
mkwan@pipeline.com
_______________________________________

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