- #1
GTOM
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I am writing a hard space opera. I plan multiple types of space battles, orbital, asteroid mine capture, board a ship (yes it is very hard to match its course). But my biggest question is the situation of convoy attack. In this case, attack frigates can speed up to 100 km/s.
How could lasers deal with so fast missiles?
(Tech specs: reactor of 100 ton ship can provide a few hundred MW, so they can maintain miliGs acceleration. X-ray lasers can make MJ pulses. Efficient against self repair armor at a range about 1000km. As far as i know the bottleneck of high energy lasers are the heat stress and deformation of focusing equipment.)
If a beam simply take out a missile, the hit of shrapnels can be still fatal. Based on molar heat capacity, i calculated it needs a MJ to melt 1kg titanium. I read this:
https://sciencing.com/calculate-velocity-temperature-6234001.htmlSo if my calculations are right, 1941 Kelvin (the melting/boiling heat for titan) means atoms move at average 30m/s. If all the vapor hit the ship, and deliver GJ energy, it is still pretty bad. On the other hand a short pulse most likely don't melt it all, but rather turns a smaller part into hot gas. An MJ explosion can give a kg mass such speed (around 1 km/s), that it miss the ship. But i guess the result is somewhat between this two extremes.
So how should i describe, imagine that situation?
How could lasers deal with so fast missiles?
(Tech specs: reactor of 100 ton ship can provide a few hundred MW, so they can maintain miliGs acceleration. X-ray lasers can make MJ pulses. Efficient against self repair armor at a range about 1000km. As far as i know the bottleneck of high energy lasers are the heat stress and deformation of focusing equipment.)
If a beam simply take out a missile, the hit of shrapnels can be still fatal. Based on molar heat capacity, i calculated it needs a MJ to melt 1kg titanium. I read this:
https://sciencing.com/calculate-velocity-temperature-6234001.htmlSo if my calculations are right, 1941 Kelvin (the melting/boiling heat for titan) means atoms move at average 30m/s. If all the vapor hit the ship, and deliver GJ energy, it is still pretty bad. On the other hand a short pulse most likely don't melt it all, but rather turns a smaller part into hot gas. An MJ explosion can give a kg mass such speed (around 1 km/s), that it miss the ship. But i guess the result is somewhat between this two extremes.
So how should i describe, imagine that situation?