An Alternative To The Standard Scifi Aliens VS Earth Air Force battle...

[Spacescifi]

It dawned on me that scifi shields that block everything are not only overrated, but they are a lot more fantastic than just using a more simple means of protection.

Consider this: Hovering your alien mothership in midair may look cool but it is tactically stupid if you lack shields, since it makes you a big 3-D target in all directions.

Instead a more sound approach is to just land somewhere safe. Then if earth fighter jets or missiles threaten, unleash swarms of scifi mini-missiles.

Scifi mini-missile specifications:

Length:  A meter each.

Maximum acceleration: 30g

Propulsion means: Scifi repulsor light rays reflected from both the emitting lens and mirrored nozzles. Which propels the missile in the opposite direction. Hard.

Warhead: Each missile carries a quarter of a kilogram of metalic hydrogen in the warhead. As these missiles are too small to carry much shrapnel, they do damage primarily from the concussive blast from the metallic hydrogen detonating on impact or remote detonation.

Max acceleration flight time: 3 hours at 30g acceleration, longer if at lower g.

Quantity: The ship has 2000 of these for defense.

Main Question:  If Earth air force or military wanted to attack this ship which is landed on the ground, would they not lose more than likely in a fight against it not using nukes?

Seems to me this is a much worse scenario for modern earth military than scifi shields.l because:

1. All the missiles are small and fast enough to hit any aircraft earth has, barring any without human occupants that can accelerate faster.

2. The scifi missiles can outlast anything we have in the air for flight multiplied by acceleration, meaning even if you do dodge one pass it will come back again and again until it hits you or you shoot it down.

3. A quarter of a kilogram of metallic hydrogen is very explosive stuff.

4. Even if earth did use nukes I reckon the scifi missile swarm could intercept it with little if any difficulty (ICBM'S are not made to dodge so much as scatter nukes).

Conclusion: Granted running out of scifi missiles is a concern. But they are not for a prolonged engagement anyway... just spurt of the moment defense to persuade an attacker to back off... while you lie and say you can do worse if demands are not met (you actually can't but Earth does not know that lol). If and when you do run low on missiles you just fly back into space to get away.

Edited February 23 by Spacescifi

[jimmymcgoochie]

So one magic ship has two thousand torch-drive missiles that can somehow sustain 30g thrust for hours and pack a kilo of metallic hydrogen into an object the size of a 3 year old? Sure, pal, whatever you say…

As for “how would Earth stop it?”, the answer is: throw literally everything- ballistic, semi-ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, planes, guided and unguided rocket artillery, Starships, Arc Light bombing runs, howitzers, Karl Gustavs, Davy Crocketts, Hiluxes with .50-cals on the back, airliners, attack helicopters, Iowa-class battleships- at it in a sustained attack from every direction until its defences were depleted, and then  nuke it. Obviously this depends on where it is on Earth, but the alien ship would be heavily limited by line of sight and a stationary target is much easier to hit. There’s also the problem of getting roasted by your own missile plumes since fantasy 30g-for-hours missiles probably have some spicy exhaust that you don’t want to be sitting right under in an atmosphere that can conduct that energy back into your ship both in an oops-we-cooked-our-own-ship way and an oops-we-can’t-see-anything-outside-any-more way. This is assuming the magic spaceship arrived on its own and didn’t deploy any satellites or launch preemtptive strikes against military bases or other priority targets, just plopped itself down on the ground and turtled up under its shields.

[Spacescifi]

3 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

So one magic ship has two thousand torch-drive missiles that can somehow sustain 30g thrust for hours and pack a kilo of metallic hydrogen into an object the size of a 3 year old? Sure, pal, whatever you say…

As for “how would Earth stop it?”, the answer is: throw literally everything- ballistic, semi-ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, planes, guided and unguided rocket artillery, Starships, Arc Light bombing runs, howitzers, Karl Gustavs, Davy Crocketts, Hiluxes with .50-cals on the back, airliners, attack helicopters, Iowa-class battleships- at it in a sustained attack from every direction until its defences were depleted, and then  nuke it. Obviously this depends on where it is on Earth, but the alien ship would be heavily limited by line of sight and a stationary target is much easier to hit. There’s also the problem of getting roasted by your own missile plumes since fantasy 30g-for-hours missiles probably have some spicy exhaust that you don’t want to be sitting right under in an atmosphere that can conduct that energy back into your ship both in an oops-we-cooked-our-own-ship way and an oops-we-can’t-see-anything-outside-any-more way. This is assuming the magic spaceship arrived on its own and didn’t deploy any satellites or launch preemtptive strikes against military bases or other priority targets, just plopped itself down on the ground and turtled up under its shields.

Satelite probe launch is standard, as it allows seeing and detecting beyond visual range. But no attacks have been made.

The alien vessel is a lone explorer not unlike thes starship enterprise. Except unlike the enterprise the crew is made up of aliens as greedy as the Ferengi but as deceptive and secretive as the Romulans from Star Trek.

And although Earth could nuke it, they will hesitate to do so. Since somehow the aliens can speak Earth language (late 18th century spanish), and they tell Earth forces via radio that if their ship is desroyed, it's hyperdrive will collape into a black hole and destroy the planet.

This is.... of course, a lie, But Earth forces have no way of knowing this.

Much better... according to the aliens, to accept their demands. Which involves delivering them a bunch of animals and plants of their choosing as a sample, plus one healthy man and one healthy woman, both in their early twenties. They even say they will bring the man and woman back when they are done with them... but the animals they will keep. No word on what they are planning to do though.

As for the missiles, they do not have plumes in the traditional sense, because all they emit is scifi repulsor light rays. Which shed energy mostly as repulsive force, and are no more hot than common Earth search lights. The spaceship itself has sublight engines using the same technology... only at lower maximum acceleration than the missiles and a max flight acceleration time of months.

And yeah, the starship does have FTL capability, but only in outer space.

Edited February 24 by Spacescifi

[Terwin]

@Spacescifi  Instead of asking questions to which you really do not want the answers, perhaps you should include:

a) an outline of how you want the story to go

and 

b) if you want a realistic examination of your scenario if it does not match the provided story outline.

Currently you are just posting lots of unrealistic scenarios and then changing them again and again when a realistic analysis goes against your imagined(but never stated) narrative.

Also, if you are not looking for a technical analysis on why your hoped-for scenario is completely implausible, The Lounge might be a better place to post your story seeds.  (they might even fit into the Forum Games if you are looking for a collaborative story telling type of activity)

[Spacescifi]

3 hours ago, Terwin said:

@Spacescifi  Instead of asking questions to which you really do not want the answers, perhaps you should include:

a) an outline of how you want the story to go

and 

b) if you want a realistic examination of your scenario if it does not match the provided story outline.

Currently you are just posting lots of unrealistic scenarios and then changing them again and again when a realistic analysis goes against your imagined(but never stated) narrative.

Also, if you are not looking for a technical analysis on why your hoped-for scenario is completely implausible, The Lounge might be a better place to post your story seeds.  (they might even fit into the Forum Games if you are looking for a collaborative story telling type of activity)

Who said it was going a way I did not want it to go? It's going as intended. That said, the lounge may be a better spot I agree. This is not so much a story, just a brain storm.

Scifi tends to get stuck so much on tropes that they don't even use what they do have to maximum potential.

Even if the rockets did shoot of dangerous radioactive plumes it is well within physics to magnetically launch them at enough range from the ship itself to avoid problems of heat. And spaceships by default should have hulls that are either radiation proof or havd a high resistance against it.

[magnemoe]

I say the close in and medium weapons would be lasers, they don't run out of ammo. More of an question, why land in orbit its few weapons who can reach you but on the ground its possible to overwhelm the defense. 
Not saying they would not use missiles but they would be more of an offensive weapon. 
 

[Spacescifi]

13 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I say the close in and medium weapons would be lasers, they don't run out of ammo. More of an question, why land in orbit its few weapons who can reach you but on the ground its possible to overwhelm the defense. 
Not saying they would not use missiles but they would be more of an offensive weapon. 
 

 

A valid point... when the real answer is for scifi is that air battles look cool lol.

[Spacescifi]

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

I say the close in and medium weapons would be lasers, they don't run out of ammo. More of an question, why land in orbit its few weapons who can reach you but on the ground its possible to overwhelm the defense. 
Not saying they would not use missiles but they would be more of an offensive weapon. 
 

 

Wait... assuming lasers today could 1 shot missiles easily (rather than beam constantly for several seconds), would they even have the range of modern artillery or anti-aircraft guns?

I say this because laser beams spread/lose focus/strength with enough distance, which means they also become ineffective at such a range.

Meanwhile an artillery shell is lethal no matter where it bursts or lands.

Like what is even the practical combat range for lasers in atmosphere?

I guess it depends on the laser lens diameter.

Let's give a laser lens diameter/bore of one meter for example.

 

This reddit post has some interesting points, which hint that lasers although cool, may not even have as good as range as regular guns befors they begin to lose focus and spread out.

 

Like 60 meters (180 feet) is a definite kill zone but past that you will start to lose beam focus/penetration and start to just burn targets. For a pistol size laser bore anyway.

Meanwhile there are sniper rifles that can hit targets miles away lol.

I guess kinetics are usually superior except in niche situations.

Edited February 26 by Spacescifi

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

 

Wait... assuming lasers today could 1 shot missiles easily (rather than beam constantly for several seconds), would they even have the range of modern artillery or anti-aircraft guns?

I say this because laser beams spread/lose focus/strength with enough distance, which means they also become ineffective at such a range.

Meanwhile an artillery shell is lethal no matter where it bursts or lands.

Like what is even the practical combat range for lasers in atmosphere?

I guess it depends on the laser lens diameter.

Let's give a laser lens diameter/bore of one meter for example.

 

This reddit post has some interesting points, which hint that lasers although cool, may not even have as good as range as regular guns befors they begin to lose focus and spread out.

 

Like 60 meters (180 feet) is a definite kill zone but past that you will start to lose beam focus/penetration and start to just burn targets. For a pistol size laser bore anyway.

Meanwhile there are sniper rifles that can hit targets miles away lol.

I guess kinetics are usually superior except in niche situations.

US thing an 1 MW laser can kill ICBM reentering. 300 KW will kill anything softer like planes and missiles. Now something like an battleship shell has so much steel its probably even harder. 
So say 5-10 MW for the standard secondary armanent.  Lasers inside the atmosphere would have losses, but above 1 MW you burn an hole in the air, you are limited by line of sight anyway. 
One interesting thing about lasers is that the laser and the turret is separated so you can have more turrets than lasers. 
As your landed you don't need to use  the bottom guns. You could also have some much more powerful lasers in the hundres of MW as as main guns. Then you have missiles but they are offensive weapons then landed. In space you can do stuff with missiles like dropping lots of small kinetic kil projectiles to deal with incoming missile swarms but on ground you are limited to attacking larger targets. 

Lasers planed for combat has an 30- 50 cm final mirror. large mirrors is nice in space then you want as long an range as possible but not much of an issue if range is limited to 20 km anyway. 

[StrandedonEarth]

And how well do lasers penetrate smoke? Laser combat would bring a new, defensive meaning to the “fog of war”

[Spacescifi]

7 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

And how well do lasers penetrate smoke? Laser combat would bring a new, defensive meaning to the “fog of war”

 

Haha... I can see it now, fighter jets dogfighting with lasers intentionally dumping large clouds of black smoke that take a while to break up... long enough to dump several and use it as a kind of shield to hide behind on occasion.

Edited February 26 by Spacescifi

[ColdJ]

@Spacescifi

Since you are basically talking point defence.

Depleted Uranium rounds in an iron coat, fired by rail guns. Single precision or rapid fire. Will punch through most things pretty easily. Incoming missiles, or flying craft.

One assumes that to get here from another solar system you have pretty advanced targeting ability, capable of calculating all the variables to hit a target with high accuracy.

Modern military get hung up on the idea of things needing to go boom. But a well placed shot will make most modern war machines non functional pretty quick. 60 million dollar plane meet solid slug tearing through your intake fans, fuel tanks etc. Warship or sub, meet slug going through below the water. Tank, meet slug going through the magazine, or even just the treads.

Soldiers, well you get the picture.