Energy Weapons VS Ballistic Weapons

[Pbartender]

Ah... that's the stuff...


Rock. On.

 

[Morgenstern]

I've been stealing PBartender's brainpower to discuss reactionless (gravitic) drives .

But I still remember gauss gauze "shields" and monolaminates !

 

[Skrittiblak]

Yeah, there may have been a lesson 4. Unfortunately only pages 6,7 and 9 could be extracted from Google's Cache.

It seems page 8 is mysteriously not there.

 

[hobgoblin]

wayback machine?
http://web.archive.org/web/*sa_/http://www.enworld.org

i know it says that its stopes at 2005, but for some reason i still get 2006 version pages when i look at it closer...

 

[Pbartender]

I've been stealing PBartender's brainpower to discuss reactionless (gravitic) drives .

Brainpower... Stolen...

Losing... Control...

Can't... Maintain... Intelligence...



GRAH! PBAR SMASH!

But I still remember gauss gauze "shields" and monolaminates !

Mmmm... I still like monolaminates... It's so much fun to say...

Monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate, monolaminate.

 

[Eltharon]

Just finished reading this, very interesting. I have sme questions (And I'm just starting AP physics, so forgive any stupidity)

1) How is a binary/liquid propellent "better" then a chemical one? And in most cases, in sci fi, the "advanced" ARs have smaller caliber shots, maybe 4mm. I know that the force of the bullet is more important then its mass, but are the binary propellents that mush more effective?
2) Some form of Partical Accellerator? Will it ever be viable?
3) Railguns--How effective would they be?
4) Lasers. I dont see them ever really making it to the battlefield just because it would be damn hard to keep them running.
5) Plasma guns. Is it possible to contain the plasma in the cartridge, then to keep it reasonably contained while its in flight?

Thanks

 

[Morgenstern]

Just finished reading this, very interesting. I have sme questions (And I'm just starting AP physics, so forgive any stupidity)

1) How is a binary/liquid propellent "better" then a chemical one?

Binary or liquid propellants ARE chemical ones. It just proposses that they store/release more energy than gunpowder in a similar volume. The idea is to create a savings in weight - same sized ammo with more kick. In practice you also need better materials for the chambers, or the weapon gets heavier trying to properly contain and focus the energy into the projectile. You also have to consider that kick is kick, and that the weapon may need additional engineering to deal with the Newtonian consequences of a faster/heavier round going one direction... and the gun going the other.

And in most cases, in sci fi, the "advanced" ARs have smaller caliber shots, maybe 4mm.

That's ussually how they keep the kick to a managable level. Or they may be discusing gauss weapons which have silly-high muzzle velocities. Either way you're looking at increased kinetic energy at delivery, while looking for equal or lesser weight at your end. For serious discussion you then get into questions of armor piercing, energy transfer, over-penetration, and resulting tissue trauma - topics that take on the qualites of religious argument despite the variety of data available...

I know that the force of the bullet is more important then its mass, but are the binary propellents that mush more effective?

In fiction, yes . I imagine actual binary explosives may generate more joules per cubic cm than gunpowerder, with the appeal being they are more stable/safe than some explosives I know are more potent than gunpowder (which would be suicidal to put into a cartrige). You just have questions of how to mix it thoroughly before detonating it in a tolerable timeframe between pulling the trigger and expecting a bullet to come flying out of the barrel.

2) Some form of Partical Accellerator? Will it ever be viable?

Eh... maybe in space, or with certain other advances beyond the scope of current tech. "Helix Particle Beams" in my sci-fi game use paired particle beams of opposing charge to keep both beams coherant over greater distances. Scientific? faintly. It's loosely modeled after the electro/magnetic oscillation of photons (which sounds great on paper ). Plausible sounding? Ussually .

3) Railguns--How effective would they be?

Exactly as effective as your power supply. Any weapon is bound by how much oomph you can put in/get out. Chemical energy STORES energy very efficiently and can release it in a mostly efficient fashion. If you have uber-batteries, then weapons that run on electricity rather than shaped explosions will give a good acounting of themselves. Otherwise they end u confined to vehicles large enough to have powerplants to put the energy into the weapon.

4) Lasers. I dont see them ever really making it to the battlefield just because it would be damn hard to keep them running.

A rugged and reliable field laser isn't that beyond the scope of current engineering I'd say. Its just power issues again. In Farthest Star there are personal laser weapons called "Blazers", which is a corruption of "Blast Laser" which refers to them being charged by a chemical reaction rather than an electrical power source... In other words they still consume ammo.

5) Plasma guns. Is it possible to contain the plasma in the cartridge, then to keep it reasonably contained while its in flight?

One question would be how do you keep the energy IN the plasma without it bleeding off? Some sort of vacuum (highly insulative) jacketing seems almost a must. So now your ammo is enormous relative to its yield. It seems generally easier (if slightly wasteful in its own way) to put the (thermal) energy charge into the ammo only when you are about to fire it, so it doesn't evaporate before you even shoot.

Thanks

Well, I hope this offers some ideas . Slug throwers will likely persist in most firm-to-hard sci-fi setting simply because they are a very efficient way of transfering killing concentrations of energy from point A to point B.

 

[Pbartender]

1) How is a binary/liquid propellent "better" then a chemical one? And in most cases, in sci fi, the "advanced" ARs have smaller caliber shots, maybe 4mm. I know that the force of the bullet is more important then its mass, but are the binary propellents that mush more effective?

Like Morg said, binary/liquid propellants ARE chemical propellants. But... The chemicals used for them tend to have more stored energy and produce more efficient and more controlled reactions when they explode. Plus, they tend to be more effective and reliable under adverse conditions... Underwater, in space, temperature extremes, after long-term storage, etc.

2) Some form of Partical Accellerator? Will it ever be viable?

Yes, but by the time you can make a viable particle accelerator weapon, you'll be able to develop other weapons that will be far more useful and effective.

3) Railguns--How effective would they be?

Just as effective as any other slug-thrower... The only difference is the motive force you're using. As Morg said, the main advantage is that you don't have to rely on chemical propellants. The main disadvatange is that you have to haul around a sizable generator instead.

4) Lasers. I dont see them ever really making it to the battlefield just because it would be damn hard to keep them running.

They've already made it to the battlefield. The U.S. and the Isrealis already have an experimental anti-missle laser for battlefield use... It's looks kind of like a futuristic spotlight.

5) Plasma guns. Is it possible to contain the plasma in the cartridge, then to keep it reasonably contained while its in flight?

Don't be fooled... A Plasma Gun is just another name for an Ion Cannon, which is just another name for a Particle Accelerator. They all work the same way; by using electric and magnetic fields to accelerate charged particles.

And when you think about it, a Rail Gun is just a Particle Accelerator on a macro scale.

Thanks

My pleasure.

 

[Eltharon]

By lasers seeing the battlefield, i meant as standard small arms. They'd be pretty hard to maintain in working order, with all the essential and fragile parts, compared with a normal asssualt rifle. Hell, they;d probably make the original M-16 look reliable in comparison.
Obviously they could be used for AA and anti missile.
Rail guns...do they have any recoil?

Thanks again.

 

[Pbartender]

By lasers seeing the battlefield, i meant as standard small arms. They'd be pretty hard to maintain in working order, with all the essential and fragile parts, compared with a normal asssualt rifle. Hell, they;d probably make the original M-16 look reliable in comparison.

Not necessarily... Remember that a laser gun of any sort will have practically no moveable parts, which is a distinct advantage over the M-16 . And the other parts of a laser don't have to be nearly as delicate as you might think.

The only really fragile part of a laser gun would be the high-precision mirrors used in the resonating cavity. That's not a real big problem, though, since A) by the time you engineer and build small-arms laser guns, you can certainly engineer and build inexpensive and durable high-precision mirrors, and B) there's already experiemantal laser guns that are designed to simply not use mirrors.

Look here for a good article on lasers as weapons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon

It's also got links to articles about particle beam weapons, and plasma beam weapons.

Rail guns...do they have any recoil?

Absolutely.