Cloaked Phaser mines

[Kitsune]

I see we have a crackpot in the audience. We'll review the basic purposes of a weapons platform and a mine.

A mine: Area denial weapon. Designed to delay your foe by forcing him to find alternate routes or clear the mines. Exactly one force in history has used mines primarily as an attack, and that was the Viet Cong.

A weapons platform: A defensive weapon. Designed to shoot people coming at it and what it defends.

I am not concernbed about what terms you use for the weapon system. I have clearly stated what type of weapon system it is. The geral concept of a mine is a weapon which costs a fraction of what the target it destroyes is.

I also cannot say that Mines have not always used to delay forces. For example, the claymore mine can be remote detonated as almost an assault weapon.

[Kitsune]

You are still ignoring the obvious.
THEY WERE ON A SHIP.
Do you have reliable data that a mine is even 1/10th of the firepower of a ship's battery, or a hundredth?

I have no direct evidence on this but a little bit of logic can be followed. Sources seem to indicate that power generation systems are a small fraction of a starship. Most of this power seems to be alocated into the warp drives which means only a small fraction of the power is needed for the weaponry. By that logic, the power system of a fighter if it is not powering a warp drive should provide enought power for phasers

Once again where are you basing this assumption?
This is a rather huge leap of logic.

We have a few different choices
1. It can be fusion powered and has a long duration
2. It can be fusion powered and have a relatively short duration
3. it is anti-matter powered

Now, logic indicates cost saving measures and most assumption is tghat fusion system are less expensive to operate than anti-matter power system. Mass for mobility is not an issue for a station. Now, based on the logic basis for fusion, we can look at long duration or short duration. Assuming a normal star system, we can assume sources for the fusion reactors are readily available so the need for large amounts of fuel are not as pressing for a ship which does not know where they will be. The station could be very effiecent and the fuel supply gives fuel for longer than others might expect. The case for fusion is very strong though.

[phongn]

I am not concernbed about what terms you use for the weapon system. I have clearly stated what type of weapon system it is. The geral concept of a mine is a weapon which costs a fraction of what the target it destroyes is.

An SA-7 might shoot down an F-16 for the fraction of the cost of said F-16, does that make it a mine? I'm quite sure a salvo of photon torpedos would cost far less than an enemy warship, are they suddenly mines?

I also cannot say that Mines have not always used to delay forces. For example, the claymore mine can be remote detonated as almost an assault weapon.

When? AFAIK, claymores are almost exclusively defensive weapons

[Kitsune]

An SA-7 might shoot down an F-16 for the fraction of the cost of said F-16, does that make it a mine? I'm quite sure a salvo of photon torpedos would cost far less than an enemy warship, are they suddenly mines?

In a way, yes, but it does not really matter, if the preferred term is weapon platform, then that is fine too. Their role is designed to protect a specific location and shoot down enemy like the SA-7 platform.

When? AFAIK, claymores are almost exclusively defensive weapons

Weapons platforms are also defensive platforms, a fort is an defensive platform. If I worded things poorly, what I mean is that the system has more flexability than a simple pressure detonated land mine. The users can decide when to use it. Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing, this is what I am refering to:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land ... aymore.htm

[SirNitram]

I see we have a crackpot in the audience. We'll review the basic purposes of a weapons platform and a mine.

A mine: Area denial weapon. Designed to delay your foe by forcing him to find alternate routes or clear the mines. Exactly one force in history has used mines primarily as an attack, and that was the Viet Cong.

A weapons platform: A defensive weapon. Designed to shoot people coming at it and what it defends.

I am not concernbed about what terms you use for the weapon system. I have clearly stated what type of weapon system it is. The geral concept of a mine is a weapon which costs a fraction of what the target it destroyes is.

You're a retard that. That is not the definition of a mine. Designing something that does not fufil a mine's objective and calling it a mine despite being shown the error many times is open season to mock your retarded ass.

I also cannot say that Mines have not always used to delay forces. For example, the claymore mine can be remote detonated as almost an assault weapon.

You are a retard, aren't you?

[Kitsune]

You're a retard that. That is not the definition of a mine. Designing something that does not fufil a mine's objective and calling it a mine despite being shown the error many times is open season to mock your retarded ass.

The Mk60 Captor Mine fires a Mk 46 torpedo at another ship (submarine). That makes it a weapon platform by your defination but by the US Navy's definition, it is a mine. Definitions are not quite as concrete as you might wish.

[SirNitram]

You're a retard that. That is not the definition of a mine. Designing something that does not fufil a mine's objective and calling it a mine despite being shown the error many times is open season to mock your retarded ass.

The Mk60 Captor Mine fires a Mk 46 torpedo at another ship (submarine). That makes it a weapon platform by your defination but by the US Navy's definition, it is a mine. Definitions are not quite as concrete as you might wish.

It is a weapon designed to slow the enemies progress, not destroy him. You think a single Mk 46 is going to stop a determined fleet cold by destroying it, or do you think it will merely make them more cautious?

[Kitsune]

It is a weapon designed to slow the enemies progress, not destroy him. You think a single Mk 46 is going to stop a determined fleet cold by destroying it, or do you think it will merely make them more cautious?

Go back and find the link I posted earlier. It is designed to specifically kill enemy submarines which usually are in small numbers. You drop the Mk 60 where intelligence shows that an enemy submarine will go over and they leave it there to kill the enemy submarine.

[Patrick Degan]

You are still ignoring the obvious.
THEY WERE ON A SHIP.
Do you have reliable data that a mine is even 1/10th of the firepower of a ship's battery, or a hundredth?

I have no direct evidence on this but a little bit of logic can be followed. Sources seem to indicate that power generation systems are a small fraction of a starship. Most of this power seems to be alocated into the warp drives which means only a small fraction of the power is needed for the weaponry. By that logic, the power system of a fighter if it is not powering a warp drive should provide enought power for phasers

From The Motion Picture onward, it has been established that phasers must be fed by ship's main power to be combat-effective. You have no argumernt.

Once again where are you basing this assumption?
This is a rather huge leap of logic.

We have a few different choices
1. It can be fusion powered and has a long duration
2. It can be fusion powered and have a relatively short duration
3. it is anti-matter powered

Now, logic indicates cost saving measures and most assumption is that fusion system are less expensive to operate than anti-matter power system. Mass for mobility is not an issue for a station. Now, based on the logic basis for fusion, we can look at long duration or short duration. Assuming a normal star system, we can assume sources for the fusion reactors are readily available so the need for large amounts of fuel are not as pressing for a ship which does not know where they will be. The station could be very effiecent and the fuel supply gives fuel for longer than others might expect. The case for fusion is very strong though.

No, cost- and space-saving considerations dictate that a matter/antimatter system is the likely engineering solution employed in the construction of DS9. I will state the case again: greater energy density per unit of fuel mass, which means longer endurance/available power than is feasible for a fusion system. And space stations are no more immune to the considerations of efficency and endurance of supply than a starship is.

[phongn]

An SA-7 might shoot down an F-16 for the fraction of the cost of said F-16, does that make it a mine? I'm quite sure a salvo of photon torpedos would cost far less than an enemy warship, are they suddenly mines?

In a way, yes, but it does not really matter, if the preferred term is weapon platform, then that is fine too. Their role is designed to protect a specific location and shoot down enemy like the SA-7 platform.

The SA-7 is not a "platform."

Weapons platforms are also defensive platforms, a fort is an defensive platform. If I worded things poorly, what I mean is that the system has more flexability than a simple pressure detonated land mine. The users can decide when to use it.

You said a claymore could be used as an "assault weapon," implying an offensive role. I questioned when it has been used in such a fashion (being rather unwieldy in that role) and you responded with that?

Neither the claymore or the CAPTOR are really weapon "platforms." They are single-use defensive weapons. Sure, the former needs to be command-detonated or use tripwire and the latter has much greater range than a typical magnetic-influence or contact mine, but that doesn't mean they really compare to your phaser weapon platforms.

[Kitsune]

The SA-7 is not a "platform."

It is launched form a rail, a box, and or vehicle. That is a platform. The F-14 used to be looked at as a Phoenix platform in the same regard.

You said a claymore could be used as an "assault weapon," implying an offensive role. I questioned when it has been used in such a fashion (being rather unwieldy in that role) and you responded with that?

Neither the claymore or the CAPTOR are really weapon "platforms." They are single-use defensive weapons. Sure, the former needs to be command-detonated or use tripwire and the latter has much greater range than a typical magnetic-influence or contact mine, but that doesn't mean they really compare to your phaser weapon platforms.

According to FAS, "It may be employed to a limited extent in certain phases of offensive operations." How much that has occured, I don't know but I think of American troops using Artillery as direct fire weapons against attacking troops in Korea, I consider the concepts similar.

I really do not care what it is called, that is not the point.

[Patrick Degan]

An observation: automated weapon platforms failed to prevent a Federation fleet from overwhelming Chin'toka during the Dominion War.

[Kamakazie Sith]

An observation: automated weapon platforms failed to prevent a Federation fleet from overwhelming Chin'toka during the Dominion War.

That's only because the UFP was able to use a technobabble solution....

[Patrick Degan]

An observation: automated weapon platforms failed to prevent a Federation fleet from overwhelming Chin'toka during the Dominion War.

That's only because the UFP was able to use a technobabble solution....

Doesn't matter. In the end, the defence failed. That the entire system was disabled by a technobabble trick only underscores the wisdom of the most intelligent thing Scotty ever said in Star Trek:"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

The SA-7 is not a "platform."

It is launched form a rail, a box, and or vehicle. That is a platform. The F-14 used to be looked at as a Phoenix platform in the same regard.

The SA-7 is a MANPADS.

[Kitsune]

The SA-7 is not a "platform."

It is launched form a rail, a box, and or vehicle. That is a platform. The F-14 used to be looked at as a Phoenix platform in the same regard.

The SA-7 is a MANPADS.

Then the man is the "Platform"

[Kitsune]

I had really hoped you'd at least be intelligent enough to see the basic problem but evidently you are not —even if you have the emitter in a retractable housing, you will still be dealing with the problem of the ambient temperature of space. Simply putting something in a compartment is not sufficent to keep heat from bleeding out into space.

I did not say that, what I specifically mean is that a retractable mount inside a platfrom will have a lower power requirement to keep the weapon wam if it is needed

Ah, a pipe-dream.

The 1977 Webster's definition of a mine (I have an old Unabridged Dictionary I used):
"An explosive charge in a container, buried in the ground for destroying enemy objects on the ground, or placed in the sea for for destroying enemy ships; it can be set off by direct contact, by time fuse, or by magnetic or chamical action. "

By that defintion, the Claymore mine is not a mine so I I am sure that teh definition has changed a little bit. The point is though that it is not describes an offensive or defensive weapon.

The enemy has to detect the mines first —a task which is far easier with platforms which give off active emissions all over the place, leave ion trails in their wakes, and register considerably greater mass than a 1.5 metre warhead. And given how many ways a ST sensor can be jammed, what's to prevent the attack force from simply employing ECM and rendering the phaser platforms useless?

When has star trek actually used active ECM system to attempt to control another ship's fire control? Let us assmume you are right, all the palform needs is to turn tight beam fire control (lidar for example) a microsecond before firing. If it can calculate a target before the ship it is targetting, it can fire before the ship it is targettting

You have to think that it is a sitaution where you are looking at a situation where there are hundreds of caltrops at your feet and you have machine-gunner hiding in some bushes.

A defence system based solely on platforms will not do the fucking job on its own. They can be shot down and far easier than a swarm of many thousands of mines. Just what part of this equation eludes your intellectual grasp?

The situation is different in the respect that we are tricking a non intelligent mine with garbage essentailly. Maybe you have changed your mind and your are talking about a mine with some ability to discriminate targets, some ability to maneuver, and the ability to comunicate with other mines.

The energy platforms have the ability to project firepower which means that mine clearing vessel cannot get as close to the phaser armed platform to clear it. It also has a cloaking device which is suppose to hide its emissions from other ships. You alson have to remember that I specifically suggested energy platforms being combined with an explosive style mine. I just see the mine as being pretty intelligent, mobile enough to actually go after an anemy (something like a future version of the Captor)

You're looking at this totally the wrong way and ignoring orbital mechanics. The number of possible orbital pathways is limited to a finite number determined by the most propulsion-efficent pathway to insertion. And even a ship in a circumpolar orbit will be crossing through the pathways of mines twice with each circuit.

I think I have a simpler answer, Russain Asat programs involved launching a Satellite to take out an ememy satelitte. This satellite had to manueaver to hit an enemy satellite which was for the most part not mobile. This was also in a low orbit where orbits are much faster.

Demonstrate how this is a "special case" that is not replicable.

How many stable wormholes are there in the Star Trek universe. One, the situation exists in only one place. Now, for example in teh wing commander universe, "Wormholes" are how ships get from place to place and all of them could theoretically be mined.

Choke point. I'm sorry if you don't understand the implications. And the "stupid officers" handwaving exercise avails you nothing. We're talking about a demostrable lack of capability. A Romulan fleet was clearly unable to outmanoeuvre a blockade line in space.

In a specific period of time which I gave a potential explanation in an earlier message which would at least be consistant and not violate the very concept of space.

Did you even watch Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Sure and I went ahead and asked a few other people if they observed choke points and none of them seemed to think of anything other than one TNG episode.

In Mr Wong's website, there does seem to be many cases where science specifically overrides "Suspension of Disbelief," A good example is when he is talking about starfighters reaching the dealth star with a short period of time. He talkis about the acceleration needed to do this but reading through teh novels they indicate a topp speed and not an accelleration. In teh same regard, if the idea of "Choak Points" is total stupid, it should be discarded.

You're just a bear for making piles of unfounded assumptions, aren't you? When a starship explodes, its entire fuel supply does not spontaneously detonate. The mechanics of a photon torpedo detonation are totally dissimilar to a starship explosion; the former specifically brings the reactants together which are already contained in minutely close proximity, the latter is a random catastrophic overpressure event which certainly does not bring together the ship's entire fuel store all at once. Start thinking before you say something.

The additiona anti-metter has to go somewere and if the explosions were even 1/10 of what I describe, I could accept your explanation

No, let's assume an antimatter production capacity which fuels a large starfleet. That is the standard for logical examination.

I added the probable anti-matter needed for starships and for all the weaponry of starfleet and we do nto get a number close to 50 meg-tons.

A key design essential for any space station is long term endurance. It must be able to sustain its operations as independently as possible of resupply for the longest possible timeframe; partly in case resupply is interrupted. Nice try at handwaving.

And you believe Iran want a power plant from Russian to exploit nuclear power.

In today, this is very important because orbital missions are very energy consuming but in star trek time, travel around the solar system is like us driving through town or maybe the extended area. It is relatively easy. All the fuel for the fusion reactor can be gotten within the system It is similar to the reason that even though oil gives more thermal energy per volume, many power plants still use coal in the United States. It is cheaper. The hydrogen for DS-9 can be pulled of the local gas giants, water, ect. Anti-matter appears to need to be shipped from out of system. The choice seems to be IN system or OUT system. Also, as long as the station is not sustaining military operations (weapons / shields) , it is probably sufficient for about a year even with the small tankage.

Straight from Wong's Website
"Furthermore, the fuel for nuclear fusion is hydrogen, which is the most common element in the universe, and the consequence of a containment failure are much less severe for fusion than for matter/antimatter."

This might also be useful
"Some Federation cultists question why DS9 does not use matter/antimatter reactors, but this is a ludicrous question. On pg. 67, the TM states: "Antimatter is first generated at major Starfleet fueling facilities by combined solar-fusion charge reversal devices ... there is a net energy loss of 24% using this process". In the discussion of its onboard antimatter generation system, it goes on to state: "the law of conservation of energy dictates that the power required for this process will exceed the usable energy ultimately derived from the resulting antimatter fuel" on pg. 72.

In other words, for every kilogram of antimatter stored on a Federation starship, at least 1.8E17 joules of energy were generated in fusion reactors, somewhere in Federation space, to produce it. Another way of putting this is that at least half of the Federation's total power-generation capacity, including both starships and starbases, must be fusion-based. Otherwise, they would not be producing enough antimatter to meet demand. "

Sisko's lashed-up mines says otherwise.

I don't know anything that states that they are not powered by a small fusion reactor or pull tiny amounts of anti-matter from the warhead. The second might actually be the best because of the imense amounts of power available in such a way without any significant drain. The mines had to have some sort of station keeping drives (which is supported by the DS-9 manual) along with swarmming enemies and had cloaking devices. It is also of power to be pulled from a chemical reactor or high capacity energy device.

You keep missing the point, don't you? Mines are expendible. They can be easily be produced by the millionfold and certainly do not require large, complex assembly facilities to manufacture. And as the Federation already has a production capability to keep a large fleet fueled with antimatter on a regular basis, the other half of the equation is not a difficult one either.

The problem is not that they do not have anti-matter, it is that they have it in sufficient quanities to sued for a simgle system. I think the numbers indicate that they probably do not produce that much fuel in a year. but obviously you disagree.

Maybe a simpler idea which use some of your ideas and mixes in my idea. Accoirding to most of the Star Trek tech manuals, Photon Torpedoes have the longest range of any Federation weapons so can cover the most volume. They are also produced in large numbers and are readily available. You mount them in a box launcher, say six to a box, with electromagnetic catapults (what seems to be how the starships throw their torpedoes) powered by capacitors. You have a fusion reactor to power a cloaking device but it shuts down in battle so that the nutrinos from the power system cannot be detected and it uses high capacity power cells

The cost can even be cheaped by using conventional nuclear warheads (since anti-matter does not seem to give much better yield) or laser fused fusion weapons.

An observation: automated weapon platforms failed to prevent a Federation fleet from overwhelming Chin'toka during the Dominion War.

Very simple, no weapon system works all the time.

[Patrick Degan]

I had really hoped you'd at least be intelligent enough to see the basic problem but evidently you are not —even if you have the emitter in a retractable housing, you will still be dealing with the problem of the ambient temperature of space. Simply putting something in a compartment is not sufficent to keep heat from bleeding out into space.

I did not say that, what I specifically mean is that a retractable mount inside a platfrom will have a lower power requirement to keep the weapon wam if it is needed

Do you even understand the concept of heat transfer mechanics? Without an active heating system it makes no fucking difference whether the emitter is inside or outside the platform.

The 1977 Webster's definition of a mine (I have an old Unabridged Dictionary I used):
"An explosive charge in a container, buried in the ground for destroying enemy objects on the ground, or placed in the sea for for destroying enemy ships; it can be set off by direct contact, by time fuse, or by magnetic or chamical action. "

By that defintion, the Claymore mine is not a mine so I I am sure that teh definition has changed a little bit. The point is though that it is not describes an offensive or defensive weapon.

I see you're going to continue indulging your bullshit definition-change game to try to skip around the difference between a mine and a weapon platform. And I will just have to keep dragging you back to point.

The enemy has to detect the mines first —a task which is far easier with platforms which give off active emissions all over the place, leave ion trails in their wakes, and register considerably greater mass than a 1.5 metre warhead. And given how many ways a ST sensor can be jammed, what's to prevent the attack force from simply employing ECM and rendering the phaser platforms useless?

When has star trek actually used active ECM system to attempt to control another ship's fire control?

The battle at Chin'toka. The tachyon detection grid. Any instance where an enemy ship has jammed subspace communications —such as at Regula One.

Let us assmume you are right, all the plaform needs is to turn tight beam fire control (lidar for example) a microsecond before firing. If it can calculate a target before the ship it is targetting, it can fire before the ship it is targettting

Except a tight-beam system is useless for tracking a fast moving target at long ranges.

You have to think that it is a sitaution where you are looking at a situation where there are hundreds of caltrops at your feet and you have machine-gunner hiding in some bushes.

Except there is no cover in open space. False Analogy fallacy.

A defence system based solely on platforms will not do the fucking job on its own. They can be shot down and far easier than a swarm of many thousands of mines. Just what part of this equation eludes your intellectual grasp?

The situation is different in the respect that we are tricking a non intelligent mine with garbage essentailly. Maybe you have changed your mind and your are talking about a mine with some ability to discriminate targets, some ability to maneuver, and the ability to comunicate with other mines.

Do not attempt to put words in my mouth or play your little bullshit definition-change games with what I say. You fucking well know I said no such thing. And a dumb mine doesn't rely on the sort of sensors that can be tricked —or did you forget the bits about "far fewer active systems" in my posts.

The energy platforms have the ability to project firepower which means that mine clearing vessel cannot get as close to the phaser armed platform to clear it. It also has a cloaking device which is suppose to hide its emissions from other ships. You alson have to remember that I specifically suggested energy platforms being combined with an explosive style mine. I just see the mine as being pretty intelligent, mobile enough to actually go after an anemy (something like a future version of the Captor)

Cloaking countermeasures already exist, a cloak cannot mask a body's mass or its radiant heat, a cloak by itself is insufficent to mask emissions, and the thing has to decloak before it can fire —which exposes it as a target.

You're looking at this totally the wrong way and ignoring orbital mechanics. The number of possible orbital pathways is limited to a finite number determined by the most propulsion-efficent pathway to insertion. And even a ship in a circumpolar orbit will be crossing through the pathways of mines twice with each circuit.

I think I have a simpler answer, Russain Asat programs involved launching a Satellite to take out an ememy satelitte. This satellite had to manueaver to hit an enemy satellite which was for the most part not mobile. This was also in a low orbit where orbits are much faster.

Which has very little application to this situation, I'm afraid.

Demonstrate how this is a "special case" that is not replicable.

How many stable wormholes are there in the Star Trek universe. One, the situation exists in only one place. Now, for example in teh wing commander universe, "Wormholes" are how ships get from place to place and all of them could theoretically be mined.

How drearily predictable of you. I expected you'd leap for the "only stable wormhole" dodge —and that was not what I was talking about. The Bajoran wormhole, unique as it may be, was yet another choke-point —which are not unique in the ST universe.

Choke point. I'm sorry if you don't understand the implications. And the "stupid officers" handwaving exercise avails you nothing. We're talking about a demostrable lack of capability. A Romulan fleet was clearly unable to outmanoeuvre a blockade line in space.

In a specific period of time which I gave a potential explanation in an earlier message which would at least be consistant and not violate the very concept of space.

Which ignores the issue at hand, actually.

Did you even watch Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Sure and I went ahead and asked a few other people if they observed choke points and none of them seemed to think of anything other than one TNG episode.

And choke-point strategies were seen being employed during the Dominion War. You have no argument.

In Mr Wong's website, there does seem to be many cases where science specifically overrides "Suspension of Disbelief," A good example is when he is talking about starfighters reaching the dealth star with a short period of time. He talkis about the acceleration needed to do this but reading through teh novels they indicate a topp speed and not an accelleration. In teh same regard, if the idea of "Choak Points" is total stupid, it should be discarded.

Try reading more of what Darth Wong actually says: the entire premise behind the examinations on this website is to treat the actual, on-screen events as observed phenomena. Suspension-of-Disbelief is not employed to cancel out this premise employed for the purposes of argument. Your construction also requires that we dismiss FTL as impossible, but as FTL is an observed phenomena in every scrap of material under review here, it must be explained and examined the same as any other phenomenon. Choke-point strategies are feasible in the ST universe due to the evident limitations of the warp and impulse drive systems, so they are employed.

Now lets have an end to your handwaving, shall we?

You're just a bear for making piles of unfounded assumptions, aren't you? When a starship explodes, its entire fuel supply does not spontaneously detonate. The mechanics of a photon torpedo detonation are totally dissimilar to a starship explosion; the former specifically brings the reactants together which are already contained in minutely close proximity, the latter is a random catastrophic overpressure event which certainly does not bring together the ship's entire fuel store all at once. Start thinking before you say something.

The additiona anti-metter has to go somewere and if the explosions were even 1/10 of what I describe, I could accept your explanation

The remaining antimatter reacts with random debris, but thousands of tiny explosions or disintegrations of uncontained material radiating outward does not produce a huge blast —nor can they. The destructions of the Yamato and the Odyssey are indicative in this regard. As that of the Enterprise stardrive section in Generations.

No, let's assume an antimatter production capacity which fuels a large starfleet. That is the standard for logical examination.

I added the probable anti-matter needed for starships and for all the weaponry of starfleet and we do nto get a number close to 50 meg-tons.

No, you pulled numbers out of thin air. Otherwise, what was the basis of your estimations?

A key design essential for any space station is long term endurance. It must be able to sustain its operations as independently as possible of resupply for the longest possible timeframe; partly in case resupply is interrupted. Nice try at handwaving.

And you believe Iran want a power plant from Russian to exploit nuclear power.

What the fuck does that have to do with anything?!

In today, this is very important because orbital missions are very energy consuming but in star trek time, travel around the solar system is like us driving through town or maybe the extended area. It is relatively easy. All the fuel for the fusion reactor can be gotten within the system. It is similar to the reason that even though oil gives more thermal energy per volume, many power plants still use coal in the United States. It is cheaper. The hydrogen for DS-9 can be pulled of the local gas giants, water, ect. Anti-matter appears to need to be shipped from out of system. The choice seems to be IN system or OUT system. Also, as long as the station is not sustaining military operations (weapons / shields) , it is probably sufficient for about a year even with the small tankage.

Did the entire point of long-term sustainability or storage space efficency fly past your head?

Straight from Wong's Website
"Furthermore, the fuel for nuclear fusion is hydrogen, which is the most common element in the universe, and the consequence of a containment failure are much less severe for fusion than for matter/antimatter."

Fine, as far as it goes.

This might also be useful
"Some Federation cultists question why DS9 does not use matter/antimatter reactors, but this is a ludicrous question. On pg. 67, the TM states: "Antimatter is first generated at major Starfleet fueling facilities by combined solar-fusion charge reversal devices ... there is a net energy loss of 24% using this process". In the discussion of its onboard antimatter generation system, it goes on to state: "the law of conservation of energy dictates that the power required for this process will exceed the usable energy ultimately derived from the resulting antimatter fuel" on pg. 72.

In other words, for every kilogram of antimatter stored on a Federation starship, at least 1.8E17 joules of energy were generated in fusion reactors, somewhere in Federation space, to produce it. Another way of putting this is that at least half of the Federation's total power-generation capacity, including both starships and starbases, must be fusion-based. Otherwise, they would not be producing enough antimatter to meet demand. "

That is a given, as much as the energy expenditure required to produce and refine any fuel. The point is that for all its difficulties, matter/antimatter offers one distinct —and overwhelming— advantage for space applications: greater energy density per unit of fuel mass, which translates into a significantly smaller onboard fuel storage with equal endurance.

Sisko's lashed-up mines says otherwise.

I don't know anything that states that they are not powered by a small fusion reactor or pull tiny amounts of anti-matter from the warhead.

Appeal to Ignorance fallacy.

The second might actually be the best because of the imense amounts of power available in such a way without any significant drain. The mines had to have some sort of station keeping drives (which is supported by the DS-9 manual) along with swarmming enemies and had cloaking devices. It is also of power to be pulled from a chemical reactor or high capacity energy device.

A mine which expends its own warhead material to fuel its onboard active systems? You can't even comprehend how ludicrous that concept is, can you? And station-keeping does not require continuous thrust over a long period —only a very occasional burst from the thrusters is actually needed.

You keep missing the point, don't you? Mines are expendible. They can be easily be produced by the millionfold and certainly do not require large, complex assembly facilities to manufacture. And as the Federation already has a production capability to keep a large fleet fueled with antimatter on a regular basis, the other half of the equation is not a difficult one either.

The problem is not that they do not have anti-matter, it is that they have it in sufficient quanities to sued for a simgle system. I think the numbers indicate that they probably do not produce that much fuel in a year. but obviously you disagree.

What numbers? You provide none.

Maybe a simpler idea which use some of your ideas and mixes in my idea. Accoirding to most of the Star Trek tech manuals, Photon Torpedoes have the longest range of any Federation weapons so can cover the most volume. They are also produced in large numbers and are readily available. You mount them in a box launcher, say six to a box, with electromagnetic catapults (what seems to be how the starships throw their torpedoes) powered by capacitors. You have a fusion reactor to power a cloaking device but it shuts down in battle so that the nutrinos from the power system cannot be detected and it uses high capacity power cells

You've produced a one-shot weapon which requires a not-compact power system which must maintain a cloak 24/7 for however long it is deployed and which does not give off neutrino emissions (beware of jargonese), will be expending energy simply to remain on-station, and will be launching at very low sublight velocities against fast-moving distant targets —which will certainly pick up torpedo launches on sensors and have more than enough time to raise shields (assuming they aren't already up) or be able to shoot them down.

The cost can even be cheaped by using conventional nuclear warheads (since anti-matter does not seem to give much better yield) or laser fused fusion weapons.

The very reason matter/antimatter is employed in warheads is because it requires far less material to produce an equivalent blast from any conventional nuke. Just what part of the "greater energy density per unit of fuel mass" equation don't you understand?

An observation: automated weapon platforms failed to prevent a Federation fleet from overwhelming Chin'toka during the Dominion War.

Very simple, no weapon system works all the time.

Which is why nobody relies on one weapon system.

[Kitsune]

Ah, You probably thought you got rid of me......or maybe hoped

Do you even understand the concept of heat transfer mechanics? Without an active heating system it makes no fucking difference whether the emitter is inside or outside the platform.

Did you even actually read what I had wrote. What I wrote was that it would reduce the power require to maintain a specific temperature. I did not say that no power would be required. Even if it was required, I doubt that power requirements would be all that high for heating a few systems.

I see you're going to continue indulging your bullshit definition-change game to try to skip around the difference between a mine and a weapon platform. And I will just have to keep dragging you back to point.

No, it is important to understand the technical definition of a mine, what it is and what it is not. The definition satets nothing about a specific role for a mine. To be honest, it does not really matter because we are discussing properties not splitting hairs but a splitting hair argumant has been being used against the concepts.

The battle at Chin'toka. The tachyon detection grid. Any instance where an enemy ship has jammed subspace communications —such as at Regula One.

I looked up what kind of event happened at Chin'toka. I have not seen the episode. It appears to be the episode where the energy plaforms ripped the hell out of a Federation fleet. My understanding is that the weapon platforms were taken out by destroying the power generators.

A comparison between fire control and comunication systems is not valid. Fire control systems are normally much higher powered, more focused, and not trying to cover the range that subspace communication which are expected.

Except a tight-beam system is useless for tracking a fast moving target at long ranges.

Umm, no, every fire control radar that I know of uses a tight beam emitter.

If you look at this picture of this Burke destroyer from my website:

Look infront of the mast, you will see what looks like a dish. That is one of the fire control transmitters for the SM-2 missiles. MKany gun systems have a similar system. Fire control systems do not have problems with the use of tight beams at long range due to teh target having less movement.

Except there is no cover in open space. False Analogy fallacy.

I will try to explain it again and will proibably get bitten for my trouble. We do not have cloaking devices in reality so the bush is standing in for the cloaking device effectively hiding the machinegunner. That is, after all, the purpose. The caltrops, like the mines have no forms of concealment and there are so many that it is hard to miss them where you might not see one or two.

Do not attempt to put words in my mouth or play your little bullshit definition-change games with what I say. You fucking well know I said no such thing. And a dumb mine doesn't rely on the sort of sensors that can be tricked —or did you forget the bits about "far fewer active systems" in my posts.

Dumn mines are the easiest to trick. They don't know the diffeernce between a large rock and a starship. Whenever something hits it, assuming a contact mine, it will detonate.. An intelligent mine at least tries and determine if the target is a starship not a mine. It may fail and I expect failures but it will at least reduce the numbers.

Cloaking countermeasures already exist, a cloak cannot mask a body's mass or its radiant heat, a cloak by itself is insufficent to mask emissions, and the thing has to decloak before it can fire —which exposes it as a target.

Claoking Devices in Trek, from everything ever shown, work different than modern cloaking technology. the appearance is that the energy is sealed inside and yes, I know this violates physics so I would assume it sends the energy in a direction away from the enemy. I do agree that it would have to decloak to fire but the response time of the starship needs to be factored in. Kind of like the Bird of Prey in the "Search for Spock" firing before the bridge crew could get ready to fire.

Which has very little application to this situation, I'm afraid.

What it shows is that there is to much volume to cover without mines without some form of propulsion.

How drearily predictable of you. I expected you'd leap for the "only stable wormhole" dodge —and that was not what I was talking about. The Bajoran wormhole, unique as it may be, was yet another choke-point —which are not unique in the ST universe.

I have talked to a variety of people trying to be fair to your argument. The vast majority of them have answered that there is nothing which can be considered Choke Points with the exception of the DS-9 wormhole and around planets. I am going with the majority rule unless you can state specific events and specific episodes.

Now lets have an end to your handwaving, shall we?

If there are no "Choke Points" it does not matter does it

The remaining antimatter reacts with random debris, but thousands of tiny explosions or disintegrations of uncontained material radiating outward does not produce a huge blast —nor can they. The destructions of the Yamato and the Odyssey are indicative in this regard. As that of the Enterprise stardrive section in Generations.

Actually, you are right except the explosions should have still been more enegetic than those and it does not explain all of the explosions of ships. I will accept the explanation of screwed up special effects if you will though and assume this is not an argument one way or the other

No, you pulled numbers out of thin air. Otherwise, what was the basis of your estimations?

Dropping the arguement of the anti-matter carried on starship, I specifically still point out that we are still talking about more anti-matter than is most likely carried on every photon torpedo in the Federation. There is a large energy loss when creating anti-matter and employing the antimatter you have in a cost effective way makes sense. For example, it sounds like the DS-9 manual suggest that there were around 2500 mines around the wormhole. With a propulsion system system, these can be used effectively otherwise they are not.

What the fuck does that have to do with anything?!

It is meant as an attention getter which it seems to have succeeded. basically like the fact that Nuclear Power makes no sense for Iran, sure you could build a station which is powered on anti-matter but it is not cost or resource efficient.

That is a given, as much as the energy expenditure required to produce and refine any fuel. The point is that for all its difficulties, matter/antimatter offers one distinct —and overwhelming— advantage for space applications: greater energy density per unit of fuel mass, which translates into a significantly smaller onboard fuel storage with equal endurance.

And it is overriden in importance due to the higher availabilty of hydrogen and the cost to produce.

A mine which expends its own warhead material to fuel its onboard active systems? You can't even comprehend how ludicrous that concept is, can you? And station-keeping does not require continuous thrust over a long period —only a very occasional burst from the thrusters is actually needed.

which of course also means that the consuption of anti-matter would be negligable so it would not really matter.

What numbers? You provide none.

I actually agree with you on the number of ships in the Federation but the number of torpedoes is pretty hard and I overscaled the numbers as a safety measure.

You've produced a one-shot weapon which requires a not-compact power system which must maintain a cloak 24/7 for however long it is deployed and which does not give off neutrino emissions (beware of jargonese), will be expending energy simply to remain on-station, and will be launching at very low sublight velocities against fast-moving distant targets —which will certainly pick up torpedo launches on sensors and have more than enough time to raise shields (assuming they aren't already up) or be able to shoot them down.

They can be put into a stable orbit which negates the need to burn fuel to hold an orbit although they would have burn fuel to change the orientation before firing. A good assumption would have to be that cloaking devices specifically hide neutrino emissions otherwise cloaking devices would be useless.

Raising shields depends on a crews ability to respond quickly although my assumption would be that shields would already be up when you are attacking a planet. That is why the large number of torpedoes being fired as a volley. The assumption is using the DS-9 manuel is that 20 torpedoes are sufficient to kill a starship.

Shooting them down, a Trekkie would argue that it is impossible because it has never happened in an episode. Now, I wrote a trek fiction and one of the specific items I allowed was the shooting of torpedoes in that fiction. Even so, teh concept is simply that you must overwhelm the ship's point defense, for example through 40 torpedoes instead of 20. Also, according to most sources, torpdoes even launched from a stationary platfoirm still travel at high sublight.

The very reason matter/antimatter is employed in warheads is because it requires far less material to produce an equivalent blast from any conventional nuke. Just what part of the "greater energy density per unit of fuel mass" equation don't you understand?

My question is how effective anti-matter really is by Trek. The force in some episodes might suggest that a nuke would be just as effective. They should be pretty effective but I wonder if in financial or safety terms, they are worth it.

Which is why nobody relies on one weapon system.

Which means that if I was defensing a moderately improtant planet, I would likely defend it with aroiund 200 photon torp platforms / mines (with 6 torps each), 40 energy weapon platfoms, and probably 8 to 12 squadrons of fighters.

[Death from the Sea]

From The Motion Picture onward, it has been established that phasers must be fed by ship's main power to be combat-effective. You have no argumernt.

This is incorrect. The Ent-Nil refit in TMP did recieve phaser power from the warp core, but later in TNG this is shown not to be the case any more. In the episode "Disaster" Ensign Ro used the energy from the phaser banks to power the bridge, main power was off line and IIRC auxillery power was off line as well. In the movie Nemesis the warp core is taken off line by the Schimitar, but the Ent-E still has phaser power.

And the claymore can be used in an offensive attack, it is commonly used to start ambushes. But that is really the only offensive use I can think of off the top of my head.

Kitsune the "cloaked phaser mine" is a bad idea, it would be much better to just use the weapons platforms that the Dominion had in the Chintoka system and fix the problem of the remote power source. Plus you would want to back up the weapons platforms with a small fleet.

[phongn]

Umm, no, every fire control radar that I know of uses a tight beam emitter.

Doesn't the SPY-1 point the SPG-62 in the right direction first, though? Also, the SPG-62 isn't really used at long-range tracking, either, it's just used for final illumination of a target.

[phongn]

From The Motion Picture onward, it has been established that phasers must be fed by ship's main power to be combat-effective. You have no argumernt.

This is incorrect. The Ent-Nil refit in TMP did recieve phaser power from the warp core, but later in TNG this is shown not to be the case any more. In the episode "Disaster" Ensign Ro used the energy from the phaser banks to power the bridge, main power was off line and IIRC auxillery power was off line as well. In the movie Nemesis the warp core is taken off line by the Schimitar, but the Ent-E still has phaser power.

In the first case, is it not possible that the capacitors for the phasers were used instead? They may have been already charged from the warp core; in the latter case the Enterprise was hardly combat-effective against the Scimitar.

[Kitsune]

Umm, no, every fire control radar that I know of uses a tight beam emitter.

Doesn't the SPY-1 point the SPG-62 in the right direction first, though? Also, the SPG-62 isn't really used at long-range tracking, either, it's just used for final illumination of a target.

The SPY-1 is decribed as an air search radar and the SPG-62 is listed as fire control on Warships1.com. Aircraft radars are similar except they use the same antenna. Many guns have similar systems (or at least in the past)



From what I undestand, the Dutch APAR system uses a fixed tracking array which is steered electronically which is probably the way of the future.

The Abrams uses a Hughes laser range finder as the main portion of its fire control system. In the same reguard, when I was using my brothers rifle, using a scope greatly improved tagetting and could track a moving target at long range but at close range, would not be effective.

[phongn]

The SPY-1 is decribed as an air search radar and the SPG-62 is listed as fire control on Warships1.com. Aircraft radars are similar except they use the same antenna. Many guns have similar systems (or at least in the past)

Patrick said: "Except a tight-beam system is useless for tracking a fast moving target at long ranges," and you responded with "Umm, no, every fire control radar that I know of uses a tight beam emitter."

The SPG-62 is not used for tracking a target, that's what the SPY-1 is for. The SPG-62 is there to illuminate the target because the SPY-1 isn't accurate enough to do the job. There is a difference.

As for the fire-direction radars on the old 40mm pieces, they were hardly engaging at long range, nor where they tight-beam (tight beam radars not existing in the 1940s).

The Abrams uses a Hughes laser range finder as the main portion of its fire control system. In the same reguard, when I was using my brothers rifle, using a scope greatly improved tagetting and could track a moving target at long range but at close range, would not be effective.

The laser rangefinder isn't used to track the target, it's used to calculate range. Tracking is done via the thermal sight.

[Kitsune]

Patrick said: "Except a tight-beam system is useless for tracking a fast moving target at long ranges," and you responded with "Umm, no, every fire control radar that I know of uses a tight beam emitter."

The SPG-62 is not used for tracking a target, that's what the SPY-1 is for. The SPG-62 is there to illuminate the target because the SPY-1 isn't accurate enough to do the job. There is a difference.

As for the fire-direction radars on the old 40mm pieces, they were hardly engaging at long range, nor where they tight-beam (tight beam radars not existing in the 1940s).

First, you have the wrong mount. It is a 3 inch mount from the 1950s up through the early 1970s. The USS Charleston had the mounts even in the late 1980s although teh fire control had been removed. The Rdsar system is from the 1950s and 1960s, not the 1940s. While probably primative by todays stanadars, by their standards they were tight beam.

The concept is that the spy-1 gets a basic target tracking and then a tight beam gets the exact position before firing, when the beam is on target, the gun fires. The exact position is determined by the fire control radar, they general position is determined by the search radar. The SPY-1 actually is far more capable than previous air serch systems like the SPS-48 and early systems which would sweep the area and then the emmitter would guide the ordnance onto target and while extremely short ranged for today's standards , it was extremely long ranged for their standards.