Space Warfare - How would the ships be built/designed?

[Rakaydos]

War between 2 planets in the same system, id expect to see Orion Drive manned warships that deploy unmanned submunition drones.

Only an Orion has both the isp and the raw power to give a vessel sustained combat maneuver capability- being a light minute away from a laser battery doesnt matter if you cant change vector by more than your sillouette in a minute. If you can make that change in vector, and can keep making it, it doesnt matter how long ranged the lasers are, they will probably miss you.

A missile or submunition drone, however, doesnt need SUSTAINED combat maneuverability- it just needs combat maneuverability long enough to get into effective (the enemy cant dodge) laser range.this lets you use cheaper chemical drives on the drones.

This leads to dedicated anti-drone drones. They will be called space supiriority fighters. Unmanned of course, but with autanimus decision making capability to handle other antidrones.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Rakaydos

[Jouni]

Oh so you'll have a better chance if your equipment is better? Because that has nothing in particular to do with this situation and everything to do with just about everything. Of course you should always try to avoid a fair fight, but that is about tactics and it has nothing to do with the speculative military applications of the science we either currently have or are close to.

That's actually the point. You're trying to hit a moving target.

Lasers may be the king of the battlefield at one moment. That makes developing technologies and tactics for countering lasers the primary objective of military R&D. New discoveries make lasers less useful, and they may eventually become obsolete.

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You can detect at extreme ranges if the enemy is maneuvering at all. Dead quiet, you can detect them at merely large ranges. All weapons have effectively quite short ranges. Decently long range might be x-ray lasers.

You can detect the enemy at a long range, but can you tell anyone about your discovery without being detected?

Anyway, you are focusing on an irrelevant detail. "Behind a moon" obviously meant "far enough and reasonably well out of sight, considering the current technological and economic constraints, that the enemy can't track the trajectories of the probes accurately enough".

[Kibble]

Ultimately, no matter the "tech level" (to use a semi-nonsense video game-like term), hostilities between two space programs separated by interplanetary distances will be about each group trying to launch spy satellites to observe the enemy's actions, while preventing enemy spy satellites from doing the same. This requires two other kinds of spacecraft: space telescopes hunting the sky for what might be an inbound spy satellite, and simple killer satellite buses to intercept and wreck the enemy probe.

[RainDreamer]

You know, I wonder what a war between 2 massive generation mother ship (homeworld style) would be like. It will be much more mobile and much smaller than a planet, making the war so much more complicated.

[baggers]

You know, I wonder what a war between 2 massive generation mother ship (homeworld style) would be like. It will be much more mobile and much smaller than a planet, making the war so much more complicated.

If I'm not mistaked, there's a recent congress about interstallar starship, and I know one of the speakers, that have presented some "intergenerationnal motherships" concepts and limitations. (fuly autonomous and enormous ship capable of sustaining long interstellar travel at a fraction of speed-ligth generations after generation of humans inside)

http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/sc2015-announcement/

Note that a war between two "mother ships" like that is probably a bit unlikely: both side can easily lost everything in a conflict. Better a negociation...

2 mothership and some automated suicide-probes is probably like 2 country and nuclear submarines: mutual assured destruction ^^

Edited September 8, 2015 by baggers

[Rune]

A few ideas:

• Space is big. The distance where lasers are effective is by definition short range. Combat may happen over much longer distances.
  
• Stealth may be possible beyond short range. Think tiny probes with passive sensors and low-power electronics, using cold gas thrusters for course corrections before reaching short range.
  
• Offense is about joules while defense is about watts. Multiple waves of projectiles may arrive at the same time, possibly overwhelming target's defenses.
  
• Nukes may be cheap enough that every kinetic projectile can also be a nuclear warhead.
  

I think those are pretty much the opposite of what really happens:

• Space is big, so you can dodge anything non-relativistic. Hence, only lasers, working without lag, are viable weapons. Maximum engagement range is thus on the order of light-seconds.
  
• Stealth is impossible for anything capable of inflicting damage. Ties into the previous point, and means that the first ship that blinds the other, wins.
  
• Joules vs Watts is a fine point, until you realize that the attacking ship must come into range of the other one to attack effectively. Hence, watts vs watts. On kinetic bombardments of stationary targets, though, your thoughts apply (which is why being a stationary target is a bad idea, there go orbital defense stations).
  
• Nukes rely on very rare isotopes, refined to amazing purities, with incredibly inefficient methods. They'll never be cheap.

Rune. I just had to reply to that, it's like, diametrically opposite to my view!

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Perhaps a fighting space ship should be like a tank. Having one or two very high yield laser weapons. And other than that being very small, maybe with a crew of 20.

The setup should be almost like an observatory, basically a featureless tube with engines on the one end a few crew decks arranged perpendicularly, and finally the weapon and targeting gear at the top.

smaller sensors, RCS thrusters and point defence weapons mounts should gird the tube part.

The engine should have high enough delta V to thrust continuously to give the impression of gravity in transit and the whole thing should be designed to face it's target frontally like a tank during combat with the front being heavily armoured with ceramic composites and things which won't melt easily under the barrage of laser fire.

Basically it should look like an upscaled apollo capsule with an observatory like thing instead of a crew module. The radar telescopic sensors to detect the enemy ship should be scattered around the ship and be very redundant, gear to visually acquire your opponent for precise targeting would be basically a few telescopes which have a link to a fire control computer so it can do trig calculations on the target.

Yeah it wouldn't be super awesome or cool looking sadly.

That has the sharp smell of realistic design. But don't despair, ablative armor is not completely crazy, and sloped armor still works against lasers, so we might still see cool-looking carbon-carbon wedges, flanked by humongous reflective radiator "wings" that have to move during battle to stay edge-on to incoming weapons fire.

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I still vote for unmanned probes equipped with an oversized (for their size) laser cannon, launched in dozens from a central assembly carried to the orbit by a rocket.

Yup, crew and support equipment have no business being involved in a laser battle. Still, the laserstars will look similar whether crewed or not, their sizing becomes dictated on the first order by the powerplant.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Rune

[cantab]

You know, I wonder what a war between 2 massive generation mother ship (homeworld style) would be like. It will be much more mobile and much smaller than a planet, making the war so much more complicated.

I think that one really depends on the goals of the war. If the goal is simple mass slaughter that will be achieved in the first attack, and if the target hasn't also given thought to such a war it's likely to be entirely one-sided, while if they have MAD may ensure.

If on the other hand the goal is to take over or exploit the other ship then it's one of the rare cases I'd expect boarding actions. It would be sensible to open with a covert op, assuming the target is amenable to peaceful newcomes, but once the war goes "open" any boarding ships will become targets, and most space combat would grow from efforts to attack and defend them. That might involve attack craft, defensive escorts, and so on, or it might involve covering fire from the generation ship and then counter-battery fire from its opposite number. It's possible that overhanging such a war will be the threat of either side "going nuclear", which ought to encourage restraint.

[Rune]

You can detect at extreme ranges if the enemy is maneuvering at all. Dead quiet, you can detect them at merely large ranges. All weapons have effectively quite short ranges. Decently long range might be x-ray lasers.

If FEL can be made to work in a spaceship (the km-long particle accelerator as a crucial component doesn't sound good for the prospects), well, the engagement envelope just jumped to about a light-minute. And the we can have humongous warships dodging in laser combat. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Rune. The unglamorous part is all those dead people from radiation sickness a few days after the battle is finished.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Rune

[baggers]

If FEL can be made to work in a spaceship (the km-long particle accelerator as a crucial component doesn't sound good for the prospects), well, the engagement envelope just jumped to about a light-minute. And then we can have humongous warships dodging in laser combat. Wouldn't that be awesome?

.

Since you can't detect (get information about) a laser shot before it reach you (unless you have non-relativist sensors), is that really a "dodge"? ^^ (still a good evasion manoeuver, for that matter)

About stealth in space, wouldn't a "fully mirrors camo" starship work?

A pointed front toward the target, to reflect any radiation or "active" sensor outside a 90 degree arc in the front.

A envellope (like a survival blanket), that keep all sort of radiations (engines too) go forward, for passive sensors.

So, undetectable from a 90 degree arc in the front even if on the move.

Enought for strike first?

Edited September 8, 2015 by baggers

[SargeRho]

The mirror will still emit infrared radiation.

[Rune]

Since you can't detect (get information about) a laser shot before it reach you (unless you have non-relativist sensors), is that really a "dodge"? ^^ (still a good evasion manoeuver, for that matter)

About stealth in space, wouldn't a "fully reflective camo" starship work?

A pointed front toward the target, to reflect any radiation or "active" sensor.

A envellope (like a survival blanket), that keep all sort of radiations (engines too) go forward, for passive sensors.

undetectable from a 90 degree arc in the front even if on the move.

Enought for strike first?

Well, in theory you could shield your ship so it didn't emit radiation (mostly) to a particular section of sky. Short of like the asteroids we are detecting all the time do for 100% of the sky, on account of their very low albedo and lack of activity of any kind, so the efficacy is dubious. But, the measures you would have to take to do so would probably render a warship with a fraction of the offensive power, for a multiple of the mass.

And all that can be very easily countered by flying ships in loose formations, scattered a few light-hours apart, even without invoking remote sensor nets or scout probes.

As for the other topic of discussion, it's an observed law that any discussion of space warfare inevitably degenerates into a discussion of stealth in space.

How very, very true.

Rune. A lot of very bright people have banged their heads against this particular wall, for a long time, and they all come up with the same: "there is no stealth in space".

[baggers]

The mirror will still emit infrared radiation.

With that sort of coating on the other side of the mirror, would'nt it emit very few radiations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_blanket

First developed by NASA in 1964 for the US space program,^[1] the material consists of a thin sheet of plastic (often PET film) that is coated with a metallic reflecting agent, making it metallized polyethylene terephthalate (MPET), usually gold or silver in color, which reflects up to 97% of radiated heat.^[2][3]

[Jouni]

Stealth is impossible for anything capable of inflicting damage. Ties into the previous point, and means that the first ship that blinds the other, wins.

Stealth is not about sneaking next to the enemy and firing it at point-blank range without the enemy noticing you. In reality, stealth is (and has always been) about making it harder for the enemy to track you precisely. Because stealth is a matter of degree, everything is stealth-capable.

You may see that there is an attack coming, but you don't know which of the three ships is targeted, and you don't know the exact time the projectiles are going to hit. You may see something maneuvering in interplanetary space, but because you only see short RCS bursts, you don't know how many enemies there are or when and where they are going to arrive. You may see a bunch of targets approaching, but because they're only barely visible, you can't tell how many of them are real enemies and how many are decoys.

Stealth is hard, but tracking is equally hard. Which of the two has an advantage over the other at the moment depends on the particulars of technology.

Nukes rely on very rare isotopes, refined to amazing purities, with incredibly inefficient methods. They'll never be cheap.

With the current technology, the cost of a simple mass-produced nuclear warhead is comparable to a small apartment in a major city. Delivery systems are much more expensive. In space, delivery systems are probably even more expensive, while future technological development may bring the costs of nuclear warheads down.

[tater]

You can detect the enemy at a long range, but can you tell anyone about your discovery without being detected?

Everyone is detected, all the time. (assuming they are close enough to be a threat in any meaningful timescale)

Anyway, you are focusing on an irrelevant detail. "Behind a moon" obviously meant "far enough and reasonably well out of sight, considering the current technological and economic constraints, that the enemy can't track the trajectories of the probes accurately enough".

Far enough to be out of sight means "not a threat for many weeks, months, or years."

Edited September 8, 2015 by tater

[cantab]

Since you can't detect (get information about) a laser shot before it reach you (unless you have non-relativist sensors), is that really a "dodge"?

You could get that information if you could observe cues that the laser weapon gives before it fires. For example that it's pointing right at you, or perhaps that it warms up slightly as components are activated. Naturally weapon designers would try and minimise such cues, but that's why back on page one I referred to lasers being "much more difficult to evade" and didn't claim such evasion was impossible.

EDIT: Regarding radiation, ultimately in the long run you have to emit what you generate as heat. You can change the spectrum, you might even vary it in different directions, but you need to keep the energy balance or your ship is going to heat up inside. Computers will generate heat, people will (on the order of 100 Watts per person), power systems will, and so on.

Edited September 8, 2015 by cantab

[tater]

You would not dodge in reaction to the target looking like it was going to fire, you'd simply dodge constantly. If you can move 1 ship radius (cross-section, as viewed from the threat) in an unexpected way during the flight time of the weapon you almost certainly dodge the shot. So think of it as randomly translating using RCS. Your flight path is pretty much unchanged, but looking at you, you'd be wobbly.

As the range decreases, this becomes impossible, and every laser fired always hits.

Note that for missiles, which necessarily are on collision courses, the fire control solution is even more trivial, and so any anti-missile system using directed energy becomes limited only by how many missiles it can kill per unit time.

And the stealth issue always ends up argues because people want it to be true, even though it's just not. Space is big, and cold, and space warships are hot. The only SF solution is to posit great directional radiators, which presumes that you know where the enemy is in the first place.

BTW, the enemy knows where his own forces are, and can communicate via lasers, which is more directional than radiators would ever be.

[Jouni]

Far enough to be out of sight means "not a threat for many weeks, months, or years."

Those are all meaningful timescales in human warfare. Some major battles in WW1 and WW2 lasted for months, while the Siege of Leningrad went on for years.

If you can launch the drones from a distance without being noticed, and then let them drift quietly towards the target, that sounds like a promising approach. It certainly lives up to the old description of warfare as "months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror."

Space is big, and cold, and space warships are hot.

Because space is cold, designing warships to be as cold as possible is one obvious approach.

[tater]

Those are all meaningful timescales in human warfare. Some major battles in WW1 and WW2 lasted for months, while the Siege of Leningrad went on for years.

If you can launch the drones from a distance without being noticed, and then let them drift quietly towards the target, that sounds like a promising approach. It certainly lives up to the old description of warfare as "months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror."

This is nonsense, though. Nothing "drifts towards a target," it must be accelerated to intercept the target. That initial acceleration means a burn, which is detected, as soon as the light arrives. That also presumes that the attacker actually knows where the target will be months/years in the future. If the target is a planet, just throw rocks, obviously. As ship to ship, it is simply not a thing. What you are positing is a form of mine-warfare basically, which is fine to a point. Space warfare = seeding possible target areas with mines. Gotcha. Except that to really be mine warfare, you'd need to seed them into an orbit around a target planet, if they are just passing through, they are not a meaningful threat.

Because space is cold, designing warships to be as cold as possible is one obvious approach.

As cold as possible is still hot, and clearly visible compared to the background. Any ship that does anything proactive at all is detected. Again, drifting mines might be quiet, particularly if they are impact fused. If they have to have sensors, and a way to attack at range... then not so much. If they are accelerated to an intercept, they will drift through the presumably target-rich area very quickly, too. Imagine there is a non-zero chance of you having a warship in orbit around Pluto. The "mine" is New Horizons. What are the chances you are hit, or even within range given it was set on the path many years before? Effectively zero.

[Jouni]

This is nonsense, though. Nothing "drifts towards a target," it must be accelerated to intercept the target. That initial acceleration means a burn, which is detected, as soon as the light arrives.

Detection doesn't mean identification, and identification doesn't mean accurate tracking. If you assume omnipotent sensors with infinite accuracy, you might as well assume infinitely powerful weapons.

As ship to ship, it is simply not a thing. What you are positing is a form of mine-warfare basically, which is fine to a point. Space warfare = seeding possible target areas with mines. Gotcha. Except that to really be mine warfare, you'd need to seed them into an orbit around a target planet, if they are just passing through, they are not a meaningful threat.

It might actually be the ship that's not a thing. A brightly glowing warship doesn't sound like a meaningful threat, because it's so easy to detect and destroy.

And yes, easy to destroy. If lasers are the primary weapons, space combat sounds like a classic example of Lanchester's square law. An n-fold advantage in numbers is equivalent to an n^2-fold advantage in quality. Swarms of ships that are just large enough to carry an effective weapon will beat large ships with defensive systems, armor, and multiple weapons.

As cold as possible is still hot, and clearly visible compared to the background. Any ship that does anything proactive at all is detected. Again, drifting mines might be quiet, particularly if they are impact fused. If they have to have sensors, and a way to attack at range... then not so much.

That's why the ships avoid doing anything proactive until they're ready to fire. Planets and hot ships are easy enough to track with passive sensors, and operating those sensors doesn't require that much computational power. Other systems can stay in sleep mode until they're needed.

If they are accelerated to an intercept, they will drift through the presumably target-rich area very quickly, too. Imagine there is a non-zero chance of you having a warship in orbit around Pluto. The "mine" is New Horizons. What are the chances you are hit, or even within range given it was set on the path many years before? Effectively zero.

Let's assume that there is a high chance of having a high-value target at Pluto when the mines arrive. The expected payoff is high enough that it justifies launching an expensive attack.

A large swarm of mines approaches Pluto. The mines are going to pass by on every side of the planet. In the first wave, there could be two kinds of mines. Suicide sensors highlight enemy targets, while other mines fire lasers at the revealed targets. There may be multiple similar waves, or just one.

Mines carrying warheads arrive later in a single concentrated wave. Their goal is to hit the hardened targets. They make course corrections while the initial battle is going on, using the information revealed by the suicide sensors, and trying to hide in the general chaos emitted by the sensors. Closer to the targets, the mines activate their guidance/propulsion systems and try to swarm the remaining defenses.

[PB666]

This is nonsense, though. Nothing "drifts towards a target," it must be accelerated to intercept the target. That initial acceleration means a burn, which is detected, as soon as the light

This argument is a falacy.

OK, suppose im Big nation space agency and i see a bunch of upstart space agenicies in other states. What i can do is this, combine a military mission with a science mission, in fact multiple missions. the first group of missions is on my communication or GPS satellite, or even soil moisture or other science stuff I have object trackers.

The second mission is interplanetary, in this mission I launch a bunch of small fusifrom shaped radar absorbing drones with retractable solar panels. The then fly around the solar system in a isoperiodic orbit with earth. Then I need to take out a satellite so th predator approaches the L1 point wher it cannot be seen because of light pollution from the sun. it then descends to about the super-moon altitude while keeping its position relative to the sun, it can still not be seen over most of the earth not even its manuevering. It then does a hohmann transfer to intercept its target behind the earth. Without thrusting it is invisible in all but the mid-low Ir spectrum. It has a large metal projectle and an accelerator at its center which it fires at the target it is heavily magnetized, once closed to the target, and that impales the target and sticks inside the target. The delivery vessel drifts back into its original super-lunar orbital position where it ascend back to L1 does a slight retrograde burn and is never seen agian.

The projectile could only be detected if the satellite was investigated, the ground might think that there was a thruster malfunction or a random collision. This could be particularly useful against the Chinese because you could argue that this is Karma from blowing a satellite to 3000 pieces, and politically use their previous action against them. You could even create plausible denyability by disabling a couple of your own satellites and maybe a few allied satellites. Then blame other nations for putting useless junk in space or shooting up your satellite. Even more clever is when you have a new satellite that fails, keep it confidential, and then knock it a few times a make spurious claims that you were attacked.

Don't say never, its difficult to make anything foolproof because fools are pretty damn clever.

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[tater]

Detection doesn't mean identification, and identification doesn't mean accurate tracking. If you assume omnipotent sensors with infinite accuracy, you might as well assume infinitely powerful weapons.

I'm assuming current telescopes, actually, although extended to build/place whatever particular type in space.

It might actually be the ship that's not a thing. A brightly glowing warship doesn't sound like a meaningful threat, because it's so easy to detect and destroy.

And yes, easy to destroy. If lasers are the primary weapons, space combat sounds like a classic example of Lanchester's square law. An n-fold advantage in numbers is equivalent to an n^2-fold advantage in quality. Swarms of ships that are just large enough to carry an effective weapon will beat large ships with defensive systems, armor, and multiple weapons.

Again, I think these conversations are meaningless without a very specific universe to talk about. Set a "tech level" with some rough rules about what is possible, then add in whatever laws of physics are violated by the SF aspect (FTL, etc), THEN start talking. The very notion of warships requires a context, as well. What are the geopolitical (cosmopolitical?) goals?

That's why the ships avoid doing anything proactive until they're ready to fire. Planets and hot ships are easy enough to track with passive sensors, and operating those sensors doesn't require that much computational power. Other systems can stay in sleep mode until they're needed.

Your ships have to go from A to B. Space travel has to be a thing for combat to happen. Just being there makes heat. If it is manned, it's at crew temp inside, which means it is hot. Your weapon drone in orbit around planet X is not an offensive weapon unless it moves to planet Y to attack something. The act of moving it makes it entirely known. If it corrects course... it is also known. "Sir, we saw 10 craft leave Mars yesterday with burns consistent with a transfer to Earth. We should prepare our defenses for possible action in 230 days." No surprises.

Let's assume that there is a high chance of having a high-value target at Pluto when the mines arrive. The expected payoff is high enough that it justifies launching an expensive attack.

A large swarm of mines approaches Pluto. The mines are going to pass by on every side of the planet. In the first wave, there could be two kinds of mines. Suicide sensors highlight enemy targets, while other mines fire lasers at the revealed targets. There may be multiple similar waves, or just one.

Mines carrying warheads arrive later in a single concentrated wave. Their goal is to hit the hardened targets. They make course corrections while the initial battle is going on, using the information revealed by the suicide sensors, and trying to hide in the general chaos emitted by the sensors. Closer to the targets, the mines activate their guidance/propulsion systems and try to swarm the remaining defenses.

So you think there might be valuable targets in Pluto's orbit 10 years from now? Because why? If we drop the travel time to a less absurd number, then the transfers might become visible. Wouldn't you just constantly send mines wherever you might suspect a possible threat? Again, the universe and politics need to be established in advance to make sense of any space warfare scenarios. Modern notions of warfare would not predict that navies in the age of sail would work so very hard to take ships as prizes, for example. That was a product of many things, including prevailing culture.

The bottom line is that tactically, there is no stealth in any real sense. Planning done 10 years in advance is strategy, not tactics. Once a fight is in progress, nothing is hidden under normal circumstances.

[Rakaydos]

There is no stealth for ships- however there might be stealth for bullets.

Figure a tiny drone armed with a laser turret. (or a bomb pumped Xray laser) Have your ship supercool it and accelerate it in the direction of a target with a supervelocity railgun. It cannot stay stealthed forever, but it might be able to stay stealthed long enough to get into laser range.

[Halsfury]

That has the sharp smell of realistic design. But don't despair, ablative armor is not completely crazy, and sloped armor still works against lasers, so we might still see cool-looking carbon-carbon wedges, flanked by humongous reflective radiator "wings" that have to move during battle to stay edge-on to incoming weapons fire.

True, you could go for the sloped armour deal but why not cover the outside in silvered aluminum as much as possible to deflect and scatter incoming lasers?

It wouldn't work all the time, certain things would have to be uncovered by design such as sensors and weapons, and even a shiny surface can absorb energy, but what it would do is prevent all of your enemy's laser's power from taking effect all at once. For instance only IR waves would get through at first then as they heat the metal and deform the surface or blacken it, more energy can be absorbed by the deformed or blackened coating leading to a point where the thin anti laser shield would fail.

Sloped armour is only good if an engineer can reasonably say that the attacks will come from a certain direction and plan accordingly. In space this design could only be applied to the front of the ship if you intend that the front face the opponent. If dealing with lasers, one of the best things you could do is cover your ship with retroreflectors thus negating the laser and firing it right back at your opponent's laser, which even might disable or weaken it depending on the design.

The best laser design is therefore a mirrored dish which can articulate to deliver all its energy to only at specific predetermined range, yet is at all other points a relatively weak and broad beam that way a retroreflector counter measure wouldn't be effective at reflecting damage and could merely dazzle the attacker.

[Rakaydos]

That's another reason for a warship to deploy laser armed drones- generating more firing angles makes angled armor and evasive maneuvers less effective.

[Halsfury]

That's another reason for a warship to deploy laser armed drones- generating more firing angles makes angled armor and evasive maneuvers less effective.

True, but what about particle beams? if we could miniaturize CERN into a star wars style weapon we would get this as the result.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Even the atoms in the particle beam would be fast enough to be just as lethal as the relativistic baseball.

Also particle beams have proven themselves an effective weapon, in 1974 a Russian scientist accidentally got shot in the head by a particle beam and was nearly killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

Few things can stand up to that kind of power, and Bugorski only survived because it passed straight on through, currently he's the only person to have been shot by a relativistic projectile