Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [GZG] Revised Salvo Missiles Update

I have to agree here.  While OA, as usual, is insightful and incredibly
up 
on technology, I have to disagree with this being *that* close to 
anti-ship Earthside.

The "over the horizon" piece doesn't map.  There is no horizon in space.

And further, for the most part, there is nothing to hide behind (think 
horizon, not asteroids or planets!).  Thus, the missiles in FT would
never 
be at a target that the firer hasn't "seen".  Granted that "seen" is 
"detected by sensor".  The missiles are not fired "blind" into an area, 
but should be able to be directed towards a ship or task force.  If they

are fired blind (beyond sensor range), then the "drop them into an area 
and hope something comes into their firing envelope" method makes more 
sense.

<shrug>

J

John K. Lerchey
Assistant Director for Incident Response
Information Security Office
Carnegie Mellon University

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 laserlight@verizon.net wrote:

> Oerjan said:
>> In space there's (usually) no horizon to block your line of sight, so
if your missiles carry enough on-board fuel you'll be able to guide them
to the *general* area of the target. ('Course, that "if" might not be
entirely trivial...) However, instead of the horizon you start to get
significant time lags in the communication between the launching ship
and the missile, so the missile still needs good enough target seekers -
and enough autonomy - to find the target on its own.
>> Trouble is, as soon as the missile has *any autonomy at all* wrt
target selection it also runs a risk of attacking some other target than
its parent ship intended...
>
> I rarely hear anyone suggesting that a mu is more than 1000km
(although there are many who feel it should be less), so assuming you're
on a 100mu table, you have less than a second of speed-of-light delay.
And you don't generally don't have a horizon. I don't mind a banzai
jammer having a chance to seduce a missile away from its main target;
what I object to is launching a missile and finding out that the target
zigged and the missile stupidly kept running to where the target *used
to be*. I f the target sees the missile coming, jinks away, and the
missile runs out of fuel trying to catch it, that's okay--although I'd
allow the missile to re-target if there was something in range, or
perhaps to cut thrust and drift a while, ready to reactivate if its
parent ship calls it again.
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