Space Mines

Dave · Post by **Dave** » 2004-03-12 09:10pm

Question: Are space mines useful? Do they actually hinder spaceship movement, delay attacks, cause significant damage to ships, generaly make havoc, etc.? Or are they a waste of money, time, resources, and all the other important elements?

Quick Definition of a Space Mine (my terms): any space based, stationary or orbital unmanned weapon which waits for a starship to close within pre-defined range of any sensors (passive, duh- contact, EM sensors, etc.), then attacks, using missles, phasers/laser cannons or any kind of explosive (conventional or Nuke) to damage/disable/destroy the targeted ship.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-03-12 09:17pm

Simple put space is both vast and in 3D, unless you have one heckava ranged weapon or one heck of a bomb space mines are for the large part useless.... unless you know were your enemy is coming from or have some other method (Grav generators, space fields whatever) to force them down a particular flight path

Dave · Post by **Dave** » 2004-03-12 09:27pm

True, but yes, assuming a chokepoint, are they effective?

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2004-03-12 09:29pm

It depends largely on the situation. Space mines are generally only useful in specific circumstances. If the enemy must traverese a wormhole or something to reach you, like the Dominion in DS9, then yes, mines could potnetially be very useful. If you want to protect a planet and can have a massive number of them orbiting it, then possibly. In most cases, however, no.

Techno_Union · Post by **Techno_Union** » 2004-03-12 09:31pm

SW mines are very effective. They can be used as ion cannons, regular mine, turbolaser mines, i believe there is also a stealth mine, and missle mines. Their range I am not sure of, but with enough they can be deadly. Not to mention Imperials like to lay mines in the ruins of starships, so if anybody comes to salvave, they get blown up.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2004-03-12 09:34pm

Dave wrote:True, but yes, assuming a chokepoint, are they effective?

Yes, but chokepoints are rather hard to come by in the vastness of space.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-03-12 09:43pm

Not really unless you can limit a craft to a choke point of mere ten of thousands of KMs or such.

And moving since this is a much more Other Sci-Fi question then anything SW vs ST related.

technomage · Post by **technomage** » 2004-03-13 12:35am

They're extremely effective in Starfire, although since warp points are the only way of getting from one star system to another in that universe, choke points are inevitable.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-03-13 01:02am

Dave wrote:True, but yes, assuming a chokepoint, are they effective?

If you have a chokepoint then mines will be effective. The question is: how do you guarantee a chokepoint given that space is vast? The only idea I can come up with is having jumpgates like in B5 or the FTL that's in "The Mote in God's Eye" series. Or SW interdictors could count as a type of mine.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2004-03-13 02:15am

Tossing them out of your shuttle bay into the path of an enemy who is chasing you also works. Unless you surround a target to defend Mines are simply a tactical weapon rather than a viable defensive weapon.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2004-03-13 02:20am

Maybe if the mines aren't stationary. Like equiping asteroids with warp drives and when ships reach a specific position or goes near enough, the asteroid is warped and is turned to an uper KE weapon. And yeah, I took that from Starcrossed.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-03-13 03:20am

Well, if the sci-fi universe in question depends on wormholes for interstellar travel [shameless plug](like mine!)[/shameless plug], space mines could be used for blockades... though regular warships could also do the job.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2004-03-13 05:58am

You could hide some space mines, horridly powerful ones, in some place. Then pursue an enemy ship/s and drive them towards the space mines and WHAM!!! They're dead.

Or you could mine a nebula or an asteroid field to prevent enemies from hiding there or running into that place or to use that place as a travel route.

Shortie · Post by **Shortie** » 2004-03-13 07:39am

Planetary orbits are likely places as well. Even if they're predictable locations they can be reasonably hidden among various orbital junk, and the enemy has to come in sooner or later. Mines aren't about winning the war, they're about harassing the enemy, damaging ships, forcing them to keep constant watch, bring in specialist ships, and generally slow him down or deter him from specific locations\routes

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2004-03-13 07:43am

Depends on the technology of the universe were are talking about, but mines that require the enemy actualy collide with the mine for it to be effective would be quite useless. However if you have long range missiles you could build mines that are essentialy containers for missiles equipped with sensors to detect enemy vessels and use them to mine some important targets. Depending on the range of the missiles in question you could lay minefields around planets or if your missiles posses an effective range of an AU or more even entire solar systems. Of course such mines still wouldn't be terribly usefull in a defense heavy universe where taking down enemy ships might require dozens of hits or more, but in an offense heavy universe they might be quite lethal.

Mining deep space would in any case be useless with out some special circumstances or weirdo technology.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2004-03-13 12:16pm

Sir Sirius wrote:Depends on the technology of the universe were are talking about, but mines that require the enemy actualy collide with the mine for it to be effective would be quite useless. However if you have long range missiles you could build mines that are essentialy containers for missiles equipped with sensors to detect enemy vessels and use them to mine some important targets. Depending on the range of the missiles in question you could lay minefields around planets or if your missiles posses an effective range of an AU or more even entire solar systems. Of course such mines still wouldn't be terribly usefull in a defense heavy universe where taking down enemy ships might require dozens of hits or more, but in an offense heavy universe they might be quite lethal.

Mining deep space would in any case be useless with out some special circumstances or weirdo technology.

Of course capter mines do have liited utility. To such a field adding mine armed with tractor beams(It the exist in the universe) to grab onto attacking ships when they enter the field could be quite effective. Adding EW mines that come on when an enemy is detected to make it even harder to find and clear the mines further slowing down the enemy.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-03-13 03:33pm

I prefer the warhammer/stargate take on stellar mines, namely that they are equipped with manouvering capacity able to run down a starship over a short distance, and then explode.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2004-03-13 04:54pm

Well, this is just an idea, but what if the mine had a relitively long range one-use gun (turbolaser, phaser, whatever) and you flooded a system with them, so that any safe vector will be fileld iwth them and only the most risky vectors are clear. Tht way, the enemy will eventually have to go through the mine field, right?

I mean they cant be expensive. A (insert generic raygun) on a mine would cost little more than putting said weapon son a ship in similar numbers. If you can afford a fleet, you can afford eneough mines to fill a good portion of the system, or at least the sensible vectors.

(I'm assuming that your ships cant fly through stars or black holes like the Culture or Xeelee, which would mean that there are no 'safe' vectors.)

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-03-13 04:56pm

Sir Sirius wrote:Depends on the technology of the universe were are talking about, but mines that require the enemy actualy collide with the mine for it to be effective would be quite useless. However if you have long range missiles you could build mines that are essentialy containers for missiles equipped with sensors to detect enemy vessels and use them to mine some important targets. Depending on the range of the missiles in question you could lay minefields around planets or if your missiles posses an effective range of an AU or more even entire solar systems. Of course such mines still wouldn't be terribly usefull in a defense heavy universe where taking down enemy ships might require dozens of hits or more, but in an offense heavy universe they might be quite lethal.

Such mines would be impractical at best, they'd need massive engines to be able to catch a spaceships and by the time your done adding protection and sensors to it you'll have a fully capable spacecraft in its own right, with matching cost. At that point you might as well build a missile boat or corvette.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-03-13 04:57pm

The only situations in which I would use mines is in an orbital blockade or if the ship I want to blow up is in immediate pursuit.

Otherwise, space is just too big.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-03-13 05:11pm

Babylon 5 demonstrated some ideas for space-based mines. one example included lacing a mine field with nukes and luring a shadow vessel through it, detonating the mines when the enemy ship passes by. or mining the jump points, in order to keep certain types of ships out. otherwise there aren't many scenarios where they'd be useful.

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-03-13 05:53pm

Darth_Zod wrote:Babylon 5 demonstrated some ideas for space-based mines. one example included lacing a mine field with nukes and luring a shadow vessel through it, detonating the mines when the enemy ship passes by. or mining the jump points, in order to keep certain types of ships out. otherwise there aren't many scenarios where they'd be useful.

And of course, no one can forget the Black Star.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2004-03-13 05:57pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:Such mines would be impractical at best, they'd need massive engines to be able to catch a spaceships and by the time your done adding protection and sensors to it you'll have a fully capable spacecraft in its own right, with matching cost. At that point you might as well build a missile boat or corvette.

In any kind of a "hard sci-fi" universe that would be true, but a number of sci-fi universes have very compact engines that are still cabable of very high accelerations relative to their spaceships or even FTL (e.g. the Pax uses FTL capable missiles in Dan Simmonses Hyperion series).

The problem with this kind of generic discussions about science fiction is that with out a specified universe or technology base their are simply too many possibilities to consider, what is true in universe A might not be true in universe B and vise versa.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-03-13 06:00pm

Sir Sirius wrote:In any kind of a "hard sci-fi" universe that would be true, but a number of sci-fi universes have very compact engines that are still cabable of very high accelerations relative to their spaceships or even FTL (e.g. the Pax uses FTL capable missiles in Dan Simmonses Hyperion series).

There's no point in discussing such sci fi universes in this sort of discussion, because in them anything can be made to work. It's only pointful to talk about things like this in places in which basic logic still applies in the first place.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2004-03-13 06:13pm

FTL missiles dont sound too illogical, considering.

If you can build an FTL drive small enough, i cant see what could stop you from strapping it to a few gigatons worth of antimater and using it as a missile. Basic logic isnst 'defied' by putting a very fast engine on a bomb and adding a crude guidence system, that was the whole idea behind the V-1 rocket afterall.