Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8082877" data-attributes="member: 16814">How do you think they cut?  They transfer energy to surface atoms, causing them to increase energy above the level to retain bonds with the atoms next to them and blow off.  They superheat the atoms, causing them to blow off.  The "cutting" action is because they do this very precisely and can be used, in precise application, as a cutting tool with a very fine point that causes the affected atoms to blow off the material before they can transfer the energy to adjacent atoms.  If you widen the beam's focus, you cause widespread heating of the target material due to the wider energy transference.Well, I mean, I pointed out why it isn't and you're just saying 'Yeah-huh!'  I think that line of argument well closed.The guided missile destroyer hit by missiles in the Falklands?  After armor was dispensed with because they weren't expecting to be in gun-lines anymore?  Yes, that was my point -- the removal of armor wasn't because the weapons made armor useless, but instead because the expectation was that ships wouldn't be fighting in gun-lines anymore and so had less need of it. They have, have they?  You apparently are unfamiliar with MRAPs and their successors, which heavily feature angled armor even on the undercarriage as a defense against RPGs and IEPs.Actually, these were supporting arguments for having armor -- if you have that much delta V available, the mass isn't a problem and the added benefit even in fringe situations -- glancing hit, debris, etc -- pay for themselves.  This was directed at your most recent claims and supports the claims I made above -- armor isn't rendered useless as you claim, but instead is in it's usual trade-off situation.Gimballed thrust is an aid, but they still use control surfaces because it adds free directional acceleration, and that acceleration is key.  The formula for turn radius is R = V^2/A, where R is the radius, V is the velocity, and A is the turning acceleration.  In your example above, if we imagine the 30g thrust can be fully gimbaled, but the missile has achieved a top speed of 2km/s (around Mach 6, not very fast for a space vehicle), it's turn radius is 13 kilometers.Your belief in hyper velocity missiles that move so fast that they punch through armor (Mach 6 isn't enough for some modern armors, although it will cause significant damage to it) effortlessly and can still hit targets is kinda off.Now, if you want to postulate this as a game state, cool, so long as it's predictable within itself it's fine and dandy.  I'm just pointing out that the belief that this is the case for reality is a bit, well, off.</blockquote>

Verification