HMS Escort

[Monkey Boy]

I think you would need some *major* panelling detail to make up for the removed ribs - looks very bleak and boring without them - I think you are right to want to keep them in.

On the rail gun:
Basic Physics. Force = mass x acceleration.
You fire a bullet with a certain force, which depends on mass of that projectile and the velocity at which you fire it.
Under Newtons laws, for every action = an equal and opposite reaction;
This means that the same force acting on the bullet also acts on the firer (in this case your ship)
However, as your ship weighs *consierably more than a bullet, the acceleration imparted to your ship would be very minor.

The point of all this, is that it does not matter a damn what you use to accelerate the projectile, only what the weight and muzzle-velocity of the projectile is.

*However*
If you use an "initial chemical propellant, you must remember that the chemical propellant exiting the muzzle will itself, act like a small short-lived thruster;
The offset of this, is that if you use an initial chemical propellant, you will actually have a slightly *greater* recoil than if you used just magnetic propellant.

Sorry, long-winded, but I think my physics is correct.

[Berkut]

well okay, if we're talking full out reality here then you wouldn't have a bridge stick out like that, it would be right in the middle of the ship, nor would you have any sort of piping on the exterior, and of course any sort of gun form of weaponry is out of the question. Also those ciws aren't very realistic either, today already it's been shown that a missile ciws is way better than a gun one, and soon it's going to be replaced by a chemical laser. Also all those ribs and guns would give a hell of a nice radar signature.

Kadaeux, interesting idea on a magnetic gun missile, but I think the sheer force of acceleration would totally mess up anything like a missile.

[Kadaeux]

Originally Posted by Berkut

well okay, if we're talking full out reality here then you wouldn't have a bridge stick out like that, it would be right in the middle of the ship, nor would you have any sort of piping on the exterior, and of course any sort of gun form of weaponry is out of the question. Also those ciws aren't very realistic either, today already it's been shown that a missile ciws is way better than a gun one, and soon it's going to be replaced by a chemical laser. Also all those ribs and guns would give a hell of a nice radar signature.

Kadaeux, interesting idea on a magnetic gun missile, but I think the sheer force of acceleration would totally mess up anything like a missile.

Actually with the predictable paths of any weapon travelling at the vessel it wouldn't matter if your CIWS was literally a snowball launcher., as for piping on the exterior its actually a brilliant idea, especially if you want to cool its contents. But the main benefit is further reducing the internal volume.

As for a radar signature, it will literally not matter, you WILL be seen, its called a heat signiture, and according to theory even a basic human being in a space suit will be thermally visible for over 500'000 kilometres.

As for the missile it's less of a missile and more of a rocket-accelerated kinetic harpoon.

[Monkey Boy]

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh......Berkut, you are quite correct, for absolute reality there probably would not be a bridge, more a central BSG style CiC room, think how vulnerable the bridges in ST really are!

In reality, our first warships are more likely to be simple cylinders, but a fine line needs to be walked between the realism and artistic licence (I'm sure I'm contradictiong some of my earlier posts with this, but never mind)

I'm not sure a chemical laser would be all that effective, a hypersonic projectile would close and impact the hull before a laser had time to do serious damage to it, and even after the projectile was melted by the laser, the melted mass of the projectile would still continue to impact the hull anyway. The laser would only really be usable on guided and explosive projectiles - destroying their electronics and igniting their explosives, but not so useful on solid 'kinetic-kill' projectiles. When a solid slug is travelling towards you nothing beats having your own wall of lead travelling in the opposite direction! Also kinetic energy weapons would take less power to use than a laser. And remember the inverse square law of radiation - a laser's power inputted to the surface it is touching falls off at the inverse square of the distance, A laser hits an object 1m away, then the same laser hits an object 2m away, when it hits the object at 2m, the target at 2m only receives 1/4 the power that is delivered to the object at 1m, and at 4m this power falls to 1/16th! You would need to pump out a lot of raw energy to 'kill' targets early enough to stop them hitting you. This inverse square law is why a partical beam (which is really a projectile weapon - using a particle or particles as projectiles) would be more effective than lasers.


As to radar signature, yeah, not just heat, but also simple albeido - even if painted matt black all over, objects in space reflect substantial light - as I said in another post on another thread, the mercury and gemini capsules were black, but when the gemini capsules did their orbital link-ups, they could see each other from a long way off as bright stars moving relative to the actual star-field.

[S.W.Ninja]

The reason some piping is on the outside of the ships hull is exactly as stated, I reckon a combination of cooling and extra internal volume to an all ready small ship would balance the risks. Ive tried to make an artistic effort to show some level of armouring in the pipes on show. Also the bridge deck even though extremely on show still gets used even on the most modern warships though there is still a CIC room hidden within the centre of the ship which can effectively control the whole ship.

As for radar I was under the impression that even the best stealth still only reduced the size of the signiture but didnt remove it completely so in space that doesnt really help as there arent any comparable objects so even a small contact would be classed as a hostile one. I reckon the major concern would be from heat guided missiles hence the two CIWS that are positioned over hanging the rear engines.

I appreciate everyones comments its hopefully going to help produce a very realistic looking starship

Ooo and thanks Kadaeux for that site, very nice.

[Berkut]

@Kadaeux, I think russians already made anti ship missiles and ICBMs that travel specifically in a chaotic path so they can't easily be intercepted. Edit: (on a second thought dont quote me on the AS missile, not too sure, but sure about icbm)

@MB, I actually didn't think about the fact that in space fragments would continue to fly towards the target, thats a good point. Physics isn't really my thing, but wouldn't cutting/melting slugs up still make a difference though? Smaller particles impacting on a larger area. Also as tech keeps advancing I'm not sure that lasers would take that much more power than magnets with necessary output to propell projectiles. I don't know the laws on laser radiation but I know there's a joint US/Israel project where they already made a laser that cat stop BM rockets, missiles and shells. Also wouldn't light diffuse a lot slower in space where there's a lot less things to bend it?

[Monkey Boy]

Yeah, stealth does not mean no radar signature (unless you get into the territory of active signal cancellation) it just means minimising the reflected energy so radars need to be closer to begin picking you up (it's that damn inverse square law again)

You have to remember that a ship would be unlikely to use radar anyway, for the same reason current navy ships go into EMCON (Emission Controll) becasue your radar tells everyone where you are, at a far greater range than it can tell you where they are. I reality thermal, optical and other passive sensors are more likely.

Likewise, the bridge, on current warships, generally, in a red alert/ action stations situation, the execultive (first) officer will go to the bridge and take charge of the bridge crew, stearing the ship and navigating, while the captain will go to CiC and fight the battle/control the tactical situation, I don't belive there is helm or engine controls in a current warship's CiC (maybe someone can correct me on this - I am *not* in the navy). But in a space ship there really is no reason why there could not be helm and other controls at one ot two consoles in the CiC.

[Monkey Boy]

Sorry Berkut, missed that post!
Yeah, if you broke up a projectile, it would spread out and do less damage, but even a spec of dust at hypersonic velocities nearly destroyed the spaceshuttle's windscreen on one mission.

You have got me there, on how efficient systems would be then, answer: who really knows, i guess.

Space doesn't make a difference, it is a law of radiated energy, the sun is considerably brighter the closer you get to it.

I find that airbourne laser they have developed, fitted to the nose of a 747 quite facinating, and yeah, it would destroy a ICBM, but not by vapourising it, mainly by frying it and destroyling it's electronics, and its explosives (remember nuclear weapons are hideously complicated devices - with compressive explosives - shaped charges that must fire with precise timing to cause critical mass for the nuclear explosion, fry the timing cuircuit or blow one side of the shaped charge first and the weapon becomes just a dirty-bomb, radioactive scrap metal.

Edit: the other thing is that the airborne laser was not destroying targets aimed directly at it, but at weapons on orbital pathways across or parallel to it's path.

[Kadaeux]

Originally Posted by Berkut

@Kadaeux, I think russians already made anti ship missiles and ICBMs that travel specifically in a chaotic path so they can't easily be intercepted. Edit: (on a second thought dont quote me on the AS missile, not too sure, but sure about icbm)

This is true, until you consider in space you will never be engaging at what we know as close range, 1'000km in space is spitting distance.

Then the more complicated the missile the larger it become and as such the less economical it becomes. Where you might have had space for 500 missiles you now only have space for 50 so to speak.

[Monkey Boy]

Pretty much all missiles used against ships these days have some form of manouver to make them harder to hit, harpoons will stay low, and then pop up to aquire the target just before hitting it, and tomahawks can track any pre-programmed path - not to mention torpedos which can be programed and guided to swim off course and then attack, so as not to give away the ship that fired them (you would naturally attack back along the path the missiles came from.)

Also, yes the more complicated the missile, the bigger and less you can carry, but also the less likely that it will be fooled by jamming or decoys and so the less you are likely to need. - it is a fine balance.