How impractical would ballistic weapons mounted on a star ship be?
Using DU or even heaver, denser material would work very well, and a 10 cm round could contain a DU nose and frame and a nuke package, (TDX, Thermal explosive, a high tech napalm for anti-personnel, Probably twice the diameter could fit a plasma bottle or other equally nasty surprises.) If I recall my military armaments correctly, the US has field rounds for tactical use that contain enough uranium to reach critical mass in a standard 105 mm round
Advantages: no maintenance at all of delicate guidance systems, propulsion systems or the elaborate fusing and slave tracking systems to transfer a weapons lock from the ship to the on board guidance system.
Few defenses would affect them. they would be too dark and too fast for any point defense systems. Sand casters MIGHT slow their velocity enough to make them pass behind the ship. Meson screens would only bother radioactive payloads, and a totally new defense, that hand waving would set at any effect from none at all to rendering the weapon useless. ANY changes in course or speed during the flight time would cause the weapon the be wasted. Depending on how hard it is to detect the heat bloom of the explosion that drives the round, you would know when they fired, and where not to let you ship reach. If they are a bright flash, easily detected by the computer, they are worthless. On the other hand, a combination of flash suppressors, a flash shield with a hole to let the round pass a few meters out, and positioning them against large emitters of waste heat, and the target will never know you fired until the round hits.
Erratic maneuvering would instantly defeat cannon, though it has costs that make it troublesome. Then the only course corrections left are dictated by the tactical situation, and the flight time of the projectile.
I have not worked out a velocity yet, but is should be massively higher that a ground based weapon. I am guessing a couple of minuets of flight time at effective ranges.
Effective range is set by the accuracy of the sensors to determine velocity relive between the ships, course, acceleration of the target and exact relative position. I don't have guestimates yet, but I'll bet any number of artillery folks can rough them out is short order.
Between the mass of the ship, and gravitics, no energy will be lost to recoil of the firing tube. all energy goes forward with the shell. Same thing, there is NO shock wave, compression wave, or any other aerodynamic fluid effects. Third, because the open end is a vacuum, the is no static column of air to push out the tube before the bullet comes out. All off those effects drastically reduce the muzzle velocity of a gun fired in atmosphere on a platform that has recoil. There is also no drop in speed from the muzzle velocity, and the trajectory is absolutely flat as long as no gravity fields are encountered.
They would be at the bare minimum as effective as their missile counterparts, except that they can pack all projectile and payload into their mass, having no fuel, guidance or other systems sharing space.
A hit would pass through the outer bulkhead, and only lose velocity when passing through a structural bulkhead or heavy equipment, drive core and containment vessels only. It WILL hole any thing else in its path, and will expose every compartment it enters to hard vacuum. And the most deadly effect of DU rounds is the heat they generate passing through metal. they flash the air inside the compartment, incinerating everything. Finally, when the payload detonates it will be DEEP inside the ship, taking crew, control electronics, piping, computer links and other delicate systems that are shielded from missile attack.
the weapon uses zero energy except for the loading mechanism, and swiveling the mount. Not much computer draw either. A gun would hardly use a ton plus storage for the ammo.
not real downsides in the firing cannot be detected.
Chemical explosives require no special handling precautions compared to rocket fuel, solid, liquid or gas. and being really industrial grade products as opposed to mill spec, amazingly cheap per round. DU is a higher tech product, but is available for the cost of processing spent fuel rods, which have to be processed somehow, and reactors would be common. Fusion might be a better source of power, but the radiation, heat and mix of exotic compounds needed to make most of the high tech materials that the Traveller universe requires to make all the wonderful toys come from controlled transmutation in either the cooling blanket or the core of a Fission power station.
In short the best transfer of kinetic energy and delivery of a payload at rock bottom prices, removing several delicate systems, with troublesome maintenance overhead, simplified and reduced power, comp and fire control and tracking, and storage and inventory control of spare parts.
The ONLY thing you lose is nail biting for a few moments that the target does not change course. Missile flight times are never dealt with, but the muzzle velocity would be many times the initial launch velocity of any missile, and the missile would only gain the same velocity near the end of its flight. So transit time for a shell could conceivably be LESS than a missile flight. And unless you are under erratic maneuvers, how often is a course change really needed.
Range would be reduced drastically on a fighter. The nature of a fighter is to high gee acceleration, uber high agility, and constant changes in vector though out an engagement. You would be back to the recoil of a conventional aircraft, but in vacuum there is never any danger of the round slowing enough due to drag that you run over your own rounds. Again you would have to know the range that fighter combat occurs, and flight time would have to be less then ten seconds for certain, and likely less than 1 second.
If these are practical, I can pull out the physics books and generate some real numbers.
Using DU or even heaver, denser material would work very well, and a 10 cm round could contain a DU nose and frame and a nuke package, (TDX, Thermal explosive, a high tech napalm for anti-personnel, Probably twice the diameter could fit a plasma bottle or other equally nasty surprises.) If I recall my military armaments correctly, the US has field rounds for tactical use that contain enough uranium to reach critical mass in a standard 105 mm round
Advantages: no maintenance at all of delicate guidance systems, propulsion systems or the elaborate fusing and slave tracking systems to transfer a weapons lock from the ship to the on board guidance system.
Few defenses would affect them. they would be too dark and too fast for any point defense systems. Sand casters MIGHT slow their velocity enough to make them pass behind the ship. Meson screens would only bother radioactive payloads, and a totally new defense, that hand waving would set at any effect from none at all to rendering the weapon useless. ANY changes in course or speed during the flight time would cause the weapon the be wasted. Depending on how hard it is to detect the heat bloom of the explosion that drives the round, you would know when they fired, and where not to let you ship reach. If they are a bright flash, easily detected by the computer, they are worthless. On the other hand, a combination of flash suppressors, a flash shield with a hole to let the round pass a few meters out, and positioning them against large emitters of waste heat, and the target will never know you fired until the round hits.
Erratic maneuvering would instantly defeat cannon, though it has costs that make it troublesome. Then the only course corrections left are dictated by the tactical situation, and the flight time of the projectile.
I have not worked out a velocity yet, but is should be massively higher that a ground based weapon. I am guessing a couple of minuets of flight time at effective ranges.
Effective range is set by the accuracy of the sensors to determine velocity relive between the ships, course, acceleration of the target and exact relative position. I don't have guestimates yet, but I'll bet any number of artillery folks can rough them out is short order.
Between the mass of the ship, and gravitics, no energy will be lost to recoil of the firing tube. all energy goes forward with the shell. Same thing, there is NO shock wave, compression wave, or any other aerodynamic fluid effects. Third, because the open end is a vacuum, the is no static column of air to push out the tube before the bullet comes out. All off those effects drastically reduce the muzzle velocity of a gun fired in atmosphere on a platform that has recoil. There is also no drop in speed from the muzzle velocity, and the trajectory is absolutely flat as long as no gravity fields are encountered.
They would be at the bare minimum as effective as their missile counterparts, except that they can pack all projectile and payload into their mass, having no fuel, guidance or other systems sharing space.
A hit would pass through the outer bulkhead, and only lose velocity when passing through a structural bulkhead or heavy equipment, drive core and containment vessels only. It WILL hole any thing else in its path, and will expose every compartment it enters to hard vacuum. And the most deadly effect of DU rounds is the heat they generate passing through metal. they flash the air inside the compartment, incinerating everything. Finally, when the payload detonates it will be DEEP inside the ship, taking crew, control electronics, piping, computer links and other delicate systems that are shielded from missile attack.
the weapon uses zero energy except for the loading mechanism, and swiveling the mount. Not much computer draw either. A gun would hardly use a ton plus storage for the ammo.
not real downsides in the firing cannot be detected.
Chemical explosives require no special handling precautions compared to rocket fuel, solid, liquid or gas. and being really industrial grade products as opposed to mill spec, amazingly cheap per round. DU is a higher tech product, but is available for the cost of processing spent fuel rods, which have to be processed somehow, and reactors would be common. Fusion might be a better source of power, but the radiation, heat and mix of exotic compounds needed to make most of the high tech materials that the Traveller universe requires to make all the wonderful toys come from controlled transmutation in either the cooling blanket or the core of a Fission power station.
In short the best transfer of kinetic energy and delivery of a payload at rock bottom prices, removing several delicate systems, with troublesome maintenance overhead, simplified and reduced power, comp and fire control and tracking, and storage and inventory control of spare parts.
The ONLY thing you lose is nail biting for a few moments that the target does not change course. Missile flight times are never dealt with, but the muzzle velocity would be many times the initial launch velocity of any missile, and the missile would only gain the same velocity near the end of its flight. So transit time for a shell could conceivably be LESS than a missile flight. And unless you are under erratic maneuvers, how often is a course change really needed.
Range would be reduced drastically on a fighter. The nature of a fighter is to high gee acceleration, uber high agility, and constant changes in vector though out an engagement. You would be back to the recoil of a conventional aircraft, but in vacuum there is never any danger of the round slowing enough due to drag that you run over your own rounds. Again you would have to know the range that fighter combat occurs, and flight time would have to be less then ten seconds for certain, and likely less than 1 second.
If these are practical, I can pull out the physics books and generate some real numbers.
