Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Plasma is hot gas, yes, but it's hot charged gas. So a plasma weapon is a particle beam weapon, right?

You would accelerate it magnetic so it has some similarities with an particle beam who is also ions. 
However for an particle beam weapon you would have to try to add electrons to beam at the muzzle to reduce beam spread because of positive charge. 

Its an space weapon, in an atmosphere the beam will stop fast same with typical plasma weapons who has more mass but move slower.
Now an particle beam might well be an practical weapon in space, shorter range than an laser but probably higher efficiency and other benefits, size would make it an ship weapon only. 

In atmosphere why not use an railgun instead? 

[Bill Phil]

21 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Well "Plasma musket" would sound weird

I have an issue with anything "plasma". Plasma is just a hot gas. "Hot gas gun" doesnt sound like a great weapon does it.

A "plasma torpedo" would be substantially less powerful than a nuke. A "Plasma gun" would have terrible penetration characteristics. A "Plasma grenade" would be ooh, several tens of percent more powerful than a conventional one and potentially less powerful than a thermobaric or incendiary grenade.

And Im being really generous in my imagination too, imagining targets exposed to sustained (0s< <1s) temperatures in excess of 1000K and not just an instantaneous release of some compressed ball of hot gas.

What if the plasma torpedo was powered by a nuke? As in the Casaba Howitzer... Although that's more a directed energy beam and not a torpedo. 

[kerbiloid]

Railgun has a lot of problems itself. And its shell speed is limited like as chemical gun's.

Bullets, water, capacitors. Boil the water with capacitors discharge to push the bullet.
Steampunk and atompunk 2-in-1.

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

What if the plasma torpedo was powered by a nuke? As in the Casaba Howitzer... Although that's more a directed energy beam and not a torpedo. 

Also I think, an Orion/Casaba mininuke pushing an impactor is the only viable design of kinetic weapon (rods from gods, so on).

Edited June 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[roboslacker]

17 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Railgun has a lot of problems itself. And its shell speed is limited like as chemical gun's.

I once had an argument with somebody who was convinced that chemical firearms would be entirely replaced with railguns within 100 years. It was a horrible experience.

I had a thought the other day about laser weaponry: Because lasers are practically unaffected by planetary gravity, laser artillery would be unable to arc shots over hills and other terrain. So a laser cannon is near-useless as a ground weapon.

[mikegarrison]

4 hours ago, roboslacker said:

I had a thought the other day about laser weaponry: Because lasers are practically unaffected by planetary gravity, laser artillery would be unable to arc shots over hills and other terrain. So a laser cannon is near-useless as a ground weapon.

That's OK; I hardly ever want to shoot the ground anyway.

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, roboslacker said:

I once had an argument with somebody who was convinced that chemical firearms would be entirely replaced with railguns within 100 years. It was a horrible experience.

 I had a thought the other day about laser weaponry: Because lasers are practically unaffected by planetary gravity, laser artillery would be unable to arc shots over hills and other terrain. So a laser cannon is near-useless as a ground weapon.

Railguns will not take over, main thing is the complexity of them try to subject it for all the abuse an military rifle experiences. 
Only infantry use I can see for them is sniping but even this is doubtful. 
For vehicles they make a bit more sense. 

And you are right that you can not use lasers for artillery, not only can you not hit stuff out of sight but the damage is weak. 
All interest of them as weapons is anti air because light-speed, as an aircraft weapon: light-speed and you can easy rotate the mirror and aim in all directions. 

[kerbiloid]

Weapon of the future is a personal implant — a network adapter.
Used every second to keep the owner attached to a public augmented reality server.
With "Tranquilize." emergency option.

[p1t1o]

On 6/9/2018 at 8:12 AM, Bill Phil said:

What if the plasma torpedo was powered by a nuke? As in the Casaba Howitzer... Although that's more a directed energy beam and not a torpedo. 

I think Casaba Howitzer is a Kinetic kill mechanism, and a pure nuke is primarily a radiation flux kill (X-ray, IR, Neutron, take your pick)

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Weapon of the future is a personal implant — a network adapter.
Used every second to keep the owner attached to a public augmented reality server.
With "Tranquilize." emergency option.

So the tinfoil hat users is just way ahead of the fashion trend 

[mikegarrison]

The true weapon of the future is good health care, public education, increasing global wealth, and sufficient food to avoid starvation. Avoiding wars in the first place is better than fighting them.

[Gargamel]

On 6/8/2018 at 5:23 AM, p1t1o said:

Well "Plasma musket" would sound weird

And muzzle loading the plasma would be .... interesting to say the least...

[kerbiloid]

39 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

The true weapon of the future is good health care, public education, increasing global wealth, and sufficient food to avoid starvation. Avoiding wars in the first place is better than fighting them.

The network implant provides everything of that!

P.S.
If plasma musket sounds weird, it can be named plasma arquebus.
(from plasma + arc + bus).

Edited June 10, 2018 by kerbiloid

[ARS]

Lasers can't be used for indirect fire. When firing laser, it needs a direct line of sight with the target, potentially exposing it to danger. As long as we have artilleries, which can be used to lob shells over obstacles, I don't think laser is gonna replace the entire weapons of the future

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

Lasers can't be used for indirect fire.

Spoiler

 +  + 

= HEADSHOT !

 

Edited June 10, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Diche Bach]

On 1/30/2018 at 1:12 PM, NSEP said:

Some Sci-Fi are good at the Fiction part and provide amazing and enjoyable stories, like Star Wars, but fail miserably at the Science part. Some Sci-Fi are extremely realistic but don't provide much of a story, like Lockheed Martins PowerPoint presentations.

OMG! THAT IS HILARIOUS!

Can I take that as my new signature!?

12 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Railguns will not take over, main thing is the complexity of them try to subject it for all the abuse an military rifle experiences. 
Only infantry use I can see for them is sniping but even this is doubtful. 
For vehicles they make a bit more sense. 

And you are right that you can not use lasers for artillery, not only can you not hit stuff out of sight but the damage is weak. 
All interest of them as weapons is anti air because light-speed, as an aircraft weapon: light-speed and you can easy rotate the mirror and aim in all directions. 

What about smart bullets that have some degree of navigational capacity?

Edited June 10, 2018 by Diche Bach
addendum

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Reveal hidden contents

  +  + 

= HEADSHOT !

 

That is actually an relevant strategy in space, you launch projectiles or missiles with an mirror who is then used to redirect your main guns. More fun you could put mines with mirrors in deep space or launched on an low energy trajectory. 
Then use fixed guns around mercury to point lots of terawatt outward. 
Note that this stuff is pretty passive and stealthy before you inflate the mirror, probably cold afterward to. 
Not very practical in atmosphere, anyway you can just add an gun to the drone, or have it dive and explode. 

Still the fun factor of some nervous and paranoid guy with an laser gun shooting at an mirror is pretty high

[magnemoe]

24 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

OMG! THAT IS HILARIOUS!

Can I take that as my new signature!?

What about smart bullets that have some degree of navigational capacity?

Yes loved it myself

Smart bullets has been tested and yes it will be an thing at least on larger calibers, however it would be harder to shoot them from an rail-gun because of the electrical pulse.
Saw an video of an .50 round with aiming, should be way easier for 25-40 mm, this would require dual feed or manual load as override lots of time you fire for effect, its an target rich environment or you do supressive fire. 
Not for normal infantry rifles unless you have to increase the caliber a lot anyway because of body armor, and its unlikely you will get large fights between groups in power armor on an regular basis.

You can also use discarding sabot to increase speed out of an gun, again no emp just an higher g force who you get anyway. 

Now probably the weirdies stuff is the US navy doing test on  how to fire smart shells at maximum range, they found it was best to fire them straight up, have the shell adjust trajectory as atmosphere get thinner and then kind of glide towards target. In short you mound the gun like an  funnel straight up, this has some benefit, recoil goes straight down and you do not need aiming or turret and reload is very easy. 
Downside is that you can not use dumb shells and you can not engage close targets nor threaten a ship with an shot before the bow. 

[ARS]

57 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

put mines with mirrors in deep space

Uuuum... This is a bad science in itself, actually. In real life, there would be some major limitations to this kind of weapon and real-life applications have even been discussed in military circles. Some of the problems:

1. In order to secure a whole planet, you'd have to mine space three-dimensionally in order to be effective. In fiction this is often not done. Earth's ocean and sea terrain contains a lot of inlets, natural harbors, bays, straits and other types of terrain that make natural choke-points where the use of mines is a practical way to deny or substantially delay passage to unwanted ships. No such barriers or terrain exist in space, and so such a barrier may be easily circumnavigated. Even protecting a very small moon with a density of one mine per every few thousand cubic kilometers would require massive numbers of mines and logistical support to successfully achieve coverage. While not completely impossible, the same logistical resources would be of better use in improving detection and interception/quick reaction capability, or outright constructing more battleworthy spaceships. Can be justified if there IS a conveniently narrow pathway to barricade, such as a local entrance to Hyperspace or the Portal Network, or if the object to be surrounded by mines is fairly small, such as an asteroid base.

2. Laying mines takes time, and for every increase in target area's radius, the number of mines you would need increase exponentially. To cover large or even moderate areas could take hundreds of years, even if it only took a few seconds to lay each mine. Unless if the mines have potential to locate and approach, or shoot, their targets from massive range, thus ensuring blockade functionality despite low minefield density, or can be all released in a single spot and relocate and organise autonomously. As for the matter of quantity, this can be explained by having automated manufacturing and minelaying facilities operating over lengthy time periods, or have the mines themselves be self-propagating machines.

3. Sea mines are deployed under water, greatly complicating the task of detecting and clearing them. Space Mines, however, are completely exposed, and easily detected since spaceships have to be able to detect debris of sufficient size to cause damage by impact. Unless there were some sort of mitigating factor (sensory disruption, cloaked mines, etc. - which in itself, a whole kind of bad science since there's no stealth in space) space ships could just pick them off with long range guns/ lasers/ missiles/ decoys/ whatever. May be partially justified by the fact that, unlike enemy ships, they can be inert, dormant and undistinguishable from generic space debris until they're close enough to strike.

4. Everything with mass has gravity. In space, little things that are relatively close to each other tend to clump up — this is how planets and stars are born, and why there are no movie-level asteroid field density. The mines would need some way to fight or negate the effects of gravity on each other that also wouldn't run out of fuel. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if they're not close enough to clump up, they will tend to drift off, and potentially become hazards to navigation. Oceanic mines are moored to the sea floor; space mines are not.

Edited June 10, 2018 by ARS

[DAL59]

On 1/30/2018 at 1:12 PM, NSEP said:

Some Sci-Fi are good at the Fiction part and provide amazing and enjoyable stories, like Star Wars, but fail miserably at the Science part. Some Sci-Fi are extremely realistic but don't provide much of a story, like Lockheed Martins PowerPoint presentations.

Manifold Time is extremely realistic and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.

On 1/30/2018 at 1:12 PM, NSEP said:

Some Sci-Fi are good at the Fiction part and provide amazing and enjoyable stories, like Star Wars, but fail miserably at the Science part. Some Sci-Fi are extremely realistic but don't provide much of a story, like Lockheed Martins PowerPoint presentations.

Manifold Time is extremely realistic and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.

On 1/30/2018 at 1:12 PM, NSEP said:

Some Sci-Fi are good at the Fiction part and provide amazing and enjoyable stories, like Star Wars, but fail miserably at the Science part. Some Sci-Fi are extremely realistic but don't provide much of a story, like Lockheed Martins PowerPoint presentations.

Manifold Time is extremely realistic(if confusing)and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.

On 1/30/2018 at 1:12 PM, NSEP said:

Some Sci-Fi are good at the Fiction part and provide amazing and enjoyable stories, like Star Wars, but fail miserably at the Science part. Some Sci-Fi are extremely realistic but don't provide much of a story, like Lockheed Martins PowerPoint presentations.

Manifold Time is extremely realistic(if confusing)and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.

On 1/30/2018 at 1:12 PM, NSEP said:

Some Sci-Fi are good at the Fiction part and provide amazing and enjoyable stories, like Star Wars, but fail miserably at the Science part. Some Sci-Fi are extremely realistic but don't provide much of a story, like Lockheed Martins PowerPoint presentations.

Manifold Time is extremely realistic(if confusing)and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.

On 1/30/2018 at 3:24 PM, kerbiloid said:

direction of artificial gravity inside the ship doesn't match the rotation plane.

It does.

[ARS]

@DAL59, Did you copy your post 5 times?

[DAL59]

Just now, ARS said:

@DAL59, Did you copy your post 5 times?

no

  Just now, ARS said:

@DAL59, Did you copy your post 5 times?

no

[ARS]

Well that's weird, because your post has like 5 repeating paragraph in my screen. Probably just a glitch

[Superfluous J]

1 minute ago, ARS said:

Well that's weird, because your post has like 5 repeating paragraph in my screen. Probably just a glitch

Manifold Time is extremely realistic(if confusing)and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.

[ARS]

Seriously, I start seeing other posts being repeated like this, not just yours

I don't know whether the mistake is in my screen or what? 

[DAL59]

21 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Manifold Time is extremely realistic(if confusing)and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.

Manifold Time is extremely realistic(if confusing)and provides a good story, while 2012 does neither.