Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

Haven't heard of that being used for horizontal surfaces, no, but for vertical barriers (to act as blast protection and improvised walls) we have Hesco barriers, which are basically the Giant Mook version of sandbags. When we don't just skip the middle man and ship in Bitburg barriers (the Giant Mook version of Jersey barriers)

edited 20th Jul '17 5:40:54 PM by AFP

I know of Hesco Barriers. The US in WWII used a metal panel that was similar to the Hescos to help create hardened run way surfaces. partly because they were easy and fast to set up plus really easy to repair.

Found it. The Advanced air fields materials. The Stuff I am thinking of was called SMT Square-Mesh Track.

edited 20th Jul '17 5:52:21 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Hmm...so on the topic of ship sizes and all that: what do you all think of a ship-carrier?

I was thinking of a ship (roughly 8-12 kilometers long) that was able to carry both fighters and actual ships (a decent amount of frigates, and maybe a cruiser or two) in its internal hangar bays.

Like this◊

Reasoning being is that if a target is halfway across the galaxy, and your ships can save fuel by being ferried, literally, why not?

Depends. Is building a carrier cheaper than the fuel safed? If yes, you want carriers. If no, you don't.

However, I still think that carriers can be useful, but mainly so that your enemy doesn't get good intel. After all, when the hangar doors are closed you cannot see if there are 10 or 15 ships inside. So they may underestimate your force (allowing you plow through theirs) or they overestimate your strength and act accordingly, thus freeing up resources at other places.

There might also be some mass or volume requirement for effective FTL precluding most warships from being capable of it. So picture some goliath of a ship popping out of FTL and disgorging a squadron of battleships and their escorts.

Actually, that's basically how Dune handled FTL. Ships would dock with a Guild Freighter, which would take them where they wanted to go. The fact that they had to deal with the Guild was a major part of the balance of power in that setting, and the Harkonens being able to launch an assault on Arrakis made it pretty clear that they had to have had major backing (read: the Emperor) to get the Guild to sign on.

I used a system like that for one of the alien races in my setting, the docking with a mammoth ship kinda deal.

Though the exact system is more there FTL is incredibly power hungry, so you have the whole fleet contribute there power to a central spire mounted FTL system, then break away once there in system.

I had forgotten about the Dune ships FTL though they get kind of weird in some of prequel books.

Why/how would being ferried in a carrier save any fuel in space?

Less fuel being used to escape planetary gravity?

Quirks of FTL?

Magic, I guess.

Engine efficiency, nuclear engines have a high ISP for instance, but dont really work when shrunk down.

While most of the time just shedding mass is better, there are edge cases where you cant miniaturize a very efficient engine, and I can definitely see those cropping up more when you get to nuclear propulsion.

Also who says the carrier has to save fuel? It could also just be faster, due to having better TWR or a more powerful FTL drive or something, it just has to offer something the fighters dont.

A staging point is another one, that would be usefull even in space.

edited 22nd Jul '17 12:19:18 AM by Imca

Another advantage carriers (opposed to traditional battleships) have are the numbers of their fighters, a la the enemy has one missile but you have two ships. And since we are talking about ships that are measured in kilometers those "fighters" can easily be (light) cruisers in size.

Kinda a tangent but what do you guys make of fighter submarines? Nuclear subs have practically infinite electricity but nuclear reactors create noise. Diesel electric subs don't create any noise when their diesel engine is off. What if you had a set of electrical only submarines that received recharges from a nuclear submarine?

Bel: So mini-subs that launch off of parent subs then? Already done to a certain extent with special forces submarines.

I am guessing you mean something more like this.

In the Navy thread we briefly discussed a concept of UUV called Underwater Gliders which are long endurance craft. You might want to look into those as well.

When I think of fighter submarines I think of this.◊

When I think of fighter submarines I think of the Pisces and Cancer mobile suits from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

Actually, I was thinking something right out of Blue Submarine No 6. Entirely unrealistic, I know, but I honestly don't know the first thing about submarine design.

Bel: Well that larger UUV is a good starting point. Most sub design is pretty straight forward. Nearly every single example is a tube shape of some sort or a rounded boxes like in the one linked.

I'm back with a bit more on orbit-to air-combat stuff. So, the faction I have in mind here mostly just uses drones for air superiority, with a few controller craft to direct them.

So, assault begins with a few waves of dropships carrying the fighter drones into atmosphere, and a few shuttles equipped for command and control. Manned strike fighters come later for SEAD, and then start landing the ground stuff.

Idea: If we already have control craft marking air targets, just drop a few boxes full of missiles right out of orbit, have the packaging break up in atmosphere, and let the missiles fly away towards whatever targets are available. More firepower in the first wave for little expense, and it could buy a little more space to get the bigger stuff ready. Could this work?

edited 22nd Jul '17 9:21:41 PM by Captain_Cactus

Usually you lead with recon and SEAD/DEAD and then send in your lead assault elements.

Yes, but you're effectiveness is going to drop off if you don't have recon data to aim the missiles.

You could suppress AA sites with it to help cover the dropships, though. Just drop a few decoys first to draw them out.

A few control craft and recon drones would already be present to find the targets for the missiles. Some of the initial combat UA Vs could also be used for SEAD/DEAD, along with support from smaller orbital strikes.

Thanks for the tips!

There is very little that manned craft can do that semi-autonomous drones can't to at least a reasonable approximation. One exception: air to air combat.

Yea, with that the drones win every single time once automated.

Or hell, even when not automated if controled from a lag free range.

edited 23rd Jul '17 2:51:07 PM by Imca