Drones and sensing passively IR

Drones:

I'd like to make a comment about drones: I wouldn't build them the way
you
suggested. You can't invent something that can only be hit by PDS but
has a
huge range of detection. Makes for bad balance IMO. 

I'd say build them as either: 
Missile sized - 6" detection range - targetable by PDS 
OR
Ship sized (no crew, allow fractional accounting, give them an FC and an
engine) and let them be targetted as normal. If you want to give them a
survival advantage, tack on a point of armour. Or something, but if they
emit (and they will in 'active mode') and they can see a long distance,
then
they should be targetable. 

In any case, fighters should be able to take em out. 

Interestingly, the passive drone is more useful! It lets you see lots of
areas of space where you are not, and it would let you triangulate
passive
sensor data for a high quality track on an enemy without going active.
The
only EM would be tightbeam between the drone and the ship - which we
assume
has little scatter if lasers can hit at 36,000km. 

IR Detection:

Whereas I will agree that a modern IR telescope can pick out small
changes
from ambient, I must ask a couple of questions as this discussion
pertains
to detecting ships: How many objects are there in the scan of a scope,
and
how many exhibit non-ambient IR? I don't know. But if dust and
meteorites
and whatnot do, then you have a lot of things to watch. 

Also, is there not a focal distance for the telescope? a band of range
it
can monitor? I'm assuming it doesn't "see" all the IR from location of
the
ship to the next solid object... or if it does, how does it distinguish
between dust, a close in meteor, a far away ship, etc that all may be
superposed to produce the composite IR reading for that bearing and
azimuth?
If it has any sort of focal radii or focal band, then it has to sweep
repeatedly (and I assume in order to be as sensitive as we discuss, it
has
to do so *very slowly*) so it might well be VERY hard to detect a ship
from
IR signature given the volume of space the scan array has to examine. 

Of course, it might not. Noam, Mark? Somebody know the answer to how
these
IR telescopes work and care to make some projections about if a ship is
easily/quickly detectable from IR or if it will remain (for some
physical-law type reason) a slow task to scan for IR passively? 

OTHER:

Someone pointed out they'd find it hard to imagine a hull 250 C lower
than
the inside of a ship. And yet they can envision gravitic compensators
and
jump drives... <heh>. That's funny. 

I believe the comment made about lasers and hull penetration is spot on.
Ship lasers probably have to hit a bunch of times or stay on the same
spot
for a period to burn through. Missiles with bomb-pumped lasers are of
course
a different matter. 

Thomas Barclay
Software Specialist 
Defence Systems
xwave solutions
www.xwavesolutions.com
v: (613) 831 2018 x 3008

Alea iacta et pessimo resulto factura est.
 
Ave, Caesar! Te morituiri salutimas!