Space Mines

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Sir Sirius
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Post by Sir Sirius »

Sea Skimmer wrote:There's no point in discussing such sci fi universes in this sort of discussion, because in them anything can be made to work.
Since the OP specifies no universe or technology base for the thread I assume Dave intended this to be a discussion about the effectivenes of spacemines in varius settings, not just "hard sci-fi", as did most of the other posters in this thread it seems.
Sea Skimmer wrote:It's only pointful to talk about things like this in places in which basic logic still applies in the first place.
:? What do you mean with "basic logic"? Not "if A=B and B=C, then A=C" type of deal I assume?
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Post by Black Admiral »

technomage wrote: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.
To expand further on this, there are three main types of mine in the Starfire universe.

The most common is the hunter-killer mine, essentially an antimatter warhead with the smallest possible engines and sensor packages attached. The warhead itself isn't particularly large, but HK mines can be emplaced quickly and in large numbers, and they don't seem so weak when dozens of them are bearing down on you.

The next most common are laser buoys, essentially a single-shot laserhead. They're one use only, but can cause a lot of dmage with that one shot.

The rarest are IDEWs, or Independently Deployed Energy Weapons, usually a primary beam with enough charge for one shot. Primaries being capable of punching through anything, that one shot can do an awful lot of damage.

Sometimes SBMHAWK pods have been used as mines, too. SBMHAWKs are three shot missile pods, meant or use in a warp point assault to soften up defences before transit. They proved equally effective at defending against an assault transit as well in ISW-4.
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Post by RedImperator »

I had the idea once for defending Earth with enormous guns placed on the moon and a minefield orbiting on the opposite side of the Earth so as to cover the blind spot Earth creates for those guns. I have no idea if it's feisable, though.
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Post by Symmetry »

RedImperator wrote:I had the idea once for defending Earth with enormous guns placed on the moon and a minefield orbiting on the opposite side of the Earth so as to cover the blind spot Earth creates for those guns. I have no idea if it's feisable, though.
It wouldn't, really. The problem would be getting all those mines to stay on the other side of the Earth from the moon. If you put them at exactly the same distance from the Earth (or actually, the Earth/Moon CoG) as the moon then they'd stay on the far side, but even a slight deviation from that would start them coming out from the far side. Also, they would all have to be on exactly the same plane of rotation... No, scratch that. If you had them a ways in some you could slew the plane of rotation and have them cover a bigger area. The huge distances involved would make mines pretty ineffective unless deployed in truly huge numbers, but thats what advanced technology is for.
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Post by PrinceofLowLight »

Howzabout magnetic mines? Toss out an assload of magnetic little boxes that are really shaped plasma charges that have an extremely crude computer that tells it to start burning when it attatches yourself. Keep friendly vessels charged constantly with the same polarity as the mines and only the enemy will be affected. Super-cheap way of causing damage, and maybe even putting openings for marines to board.

One of the best parts is that it's a great defensive weapon because it would just look like a cloud of debris and would be super-difficult to shoot down once it's too late.
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

But what's the range of the magnets?
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Post by 18-Till-I-Die »

I think you're all missing what a few hundred gigatons of antimater strapped to a crude engine with a sensor for detecting enemy ships could do. Put a neutronium hard beak on it, it plunges into enemy ships and 'BOOM' no more enemy. Flood a certian system with billions of them, and you got yourself the equivilent of a huge kegger...everyone but you gets screwed 8) .
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Post by HRogge »

18-Till-I-Die wrote:I think you're all missing what a few hundred gigatons of antimater strapped to a crude engine with a sensor for detecting enemy ships could do. Put a neutronium hard beak on it, it plunges into enemy ships and 'BOOM' no more enemy. Flood a certian system with billions of them, and you got yourself the equivilent of a huge kegger...everyone but you gets screwed 8) .
Flooding a system with billions of objects, each with billions of tons mass might be a little bit difficult.
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Post by 18-Till-I-Die »

HRogge wrote:
18-Till-I-Die wrote:I think you're all missing what a few hundred gigatons of antimater strapped to a crude engine with a sensor for detecting enemy ships could do. Put a neutronium hard beak on it, it plunges into enemy ships and 'BOOM' no more enemy. Flood a certian system with billions of them, and you got yourself the equivilent of a huge kegger...everyone but you gets screwed 8) .
Flooding a system with billions of objects, each with billions of tons mass might be a little bit difficult.
Hey, do you want to blockade a system or breastfeed it!?

(just kidding, just'a joshin')

Seriously, neutronium hard was the word, any kind of armour with the same strength, or what would be required to punch through armour in that universe, is sufficient.
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Post by Stewart at SDI »

Mr Bean wrote: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
Wrong. Before the Reagan administration started the Stratigic Defense Inititive, Dr. Edward Tellar proposed a type od "orbiting mine" that could shoot down dozzens to hundreds of enimy ICMB's at a time.

The device consisted of a nuclear bomb with dozzens/hundreds of "rods of X-Ray lasing material" and their assosiated tracking systems attached to the outside of the case.

When each rod was aligned with a target the bomb was fired and the rods sent beams of X-Rays to destroy the missiles. The technology was tested and shown to work better than expected. It was not fielded because the concept violated the Nuc's in space provisions of several treaties.

I do not see why this type of system could not make a decent mine for use against any of a number of targets in the settings discussed here.

Sincerely, Stewart.
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Post by Exonerate »

Stewart at SDI wrote:
Mr Bean wrote: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
Wrong. Before the Reagan administration started the Stratigic Defense Inititive, Dr. Edward Tellar proposed a type od "orbiting mine" that could shoot down dozzens to hundreds of enimy ICMB's at a time.

The device consisted of a nuclear bomb with dozzens/hundreds of "rods of X-Ray lasing material" and their assosiated tracking systems attached to the outside of the case.

When each rod was aligned with a target the bomb was fired and the rods sent beams of X-Rays to destroy the missiles. The technology was tested and shown to work better than expected. It was not fielded because the concept violated the Nuc's in space provisions of several treaties.

I do not see why this type of system could not make a decent mine for use against any of a number of targets in the settings discussed here.

Sincerely, Stewart.
Doesn't work when -
1. The targets move too fast to be hit.
2. There's too much space to cover.
3. The targets can hit the mine.

In all reality, space mines are useless on a grand level in space for area deprival, unless there are chokepoints. Its much too easy to just circumnavigate them... I can see tactical uses for them perhaps, such as putting a few on the flank so approaching enemy ships from there would have to think twice, but that's pretty much it...

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Post by The Dude »

Stewart at SDI wrote:When each rod was aligned with a target the bomb was fired and the rods sent beams of X-Rays to destroy the missiles. The technology was tested and shown to work better than expected. It was not fielded because the concept violated the Nuc's in space provisions of several treaties.
Wrong. It was not fielded because the project was an unqualified disaster. Despite many $billions in funding and Teller's best attempts to spin the results, there was never any evidence that the x-ray laser could work; the power output was consistently orders of magnitude lower than what Teller predicted. They couldn't even get it to work on a laboratory scale, much less show that it was a viable defense system.

How is this "better than expected"?
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Re: Space Mines

Post by GrandMasterTerwynn »

Dave wrote: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.
No. A space mine is generally about as useless as taking on a modern Marine with an M-16 while carrying nothing more than an spear and a loincloth. Generally the only thing you could use a space mine for is to defend big obvious targets that don't move. That, or drop them behind you as you're fleeing with your tail tucked between your legs, and hope your enemy is too concerned with chasing you to notice the mines until it's too late.

And the mine will only work if its weapons have the same, or greater reach than those carried aboard your target ships. Furthermore, contact mines are worse than useless, given the amounts of space you have to cover. About the only things they're liable to contact is a planet, and that could take millions of years.
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Post by GrandMasterTerwynn »

Dave wrote:True, but yes, assuming a chokepoint, are they effective?
How do you propose to create a chokepoint in space? Unless your method of FTL travel involves the use of wormholes, gates, or well-defined points of emergence and departure. And even there, unless you lay the mines on really thick, they may not be able to do much damage before the target ship can get clear.
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