Desubot wrote:
Current laser powers will "eventually" dissipate though not sure of the range.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Current laser powers will "eventually" dissipate though not sure of the range.

Sure, although the ranges at which they dissipate in a vacuum are very very long. You'd run into the issue of only seeing your target where it was some time ago before your laser was diffracted enough to make it harmless.

 Desubot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Current laser powers will "eventually" dissipate though not sure of the range.

Sure, although the ranges at which they dissipate in a vacuum are very very long. You'd run into the issue of only seeing your target where it was some time ago before your laser was diffracted enough to make it harmless.

Like i said

we need realistic perimeters otherwise its going to go in circles or people will move goal posts / distance to argue.

like say it was a war between earth and mars.

or pluto.

 Desubot wrote:
Hell wonder what a war between us and the nearest star would be like.

The prospect of using lasers in space, as part of an overall strategic defense plan of the United States, was gaining significant support in the early twenty-first century. In this scenario, lasers would not be a source of directed energy in an offensive attack, but the lasers would primarily be used in a defensive mode to target, track, and identify potentially hazardous threats that may come in the form of intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. The types of lasers used would vary widely, depending on the functions to be performed by the laser. For example, small low-powered lasers would be used to realize optical radar functions and to determine the location and velocity of moving targets in space. More powerful solid-state or chemical lasers could then be used as a source of directed energy to disable rogue missile attacks. Several plans have been proposed to incorporate lasers in space as part of a unified missile defense plan, including ground-based lasers and orbiting reflectors to assist in tracking and directing the laser radiation. Owing to the harsh environment of space, novel engineering approaches would need to be employed to make these laser systems robust and reliable. In addition, the need for generating power to operate the lasers may easily be accomplished by a combination of solar cells or direct solar-pumped lasers.

For certain niche scenarios, lasers might prove themselves ideal. It seems unlikely, however, that they will ever outright replace missiles and bullets, as they do in so much sci-fi warfare.

"Projectiles are very, very efficient because they have a lot of mass," said Beason. Yet photons, the constituents of lasers, have no mass. In order to achieve kinetic energy-type damage with lasers, Beason said, "you need to have the energy sky-high, and you need to store a lot of it."

Explosions are basically a waste of energy in space. On the ground, these are devastating because of the shock wave that goes along with them. But in the vacuum of space, an explosion just creates some tenuous, expanding gases that would be easily dissipated by a hull. No, to damage spacecraft systems, you can't hit them with gas unless it's really, really concentrated and energetic. So unless you want to just wait till your enemy is close enough that you can point your engines at him, the best bets for ranged weapons are kinetic impactors and radiation.

A kinetic impactor is basically just a slug that goes really fast and hits the enemy fighter, tearing through the hull, damaging delicate systems with vibrations, throwing gyroscopes out of alignment so that they spin into their enclosures and explode into shards, puncturing tanks of fuel and other consumables, or directly killing the pilot and crew. You know…bullets. But it sounds much more technical and science-fictiony to say "mass driver" or "kinetic lance" or something of the sort. Of course, the simplest way to implement this sort of weapon in space is just as some kind of machine gun or cannon. Those will work in space (ask the Soviets, they tested a cannon on their first Salyut space station), and the shells will do plenty of damage if they hit anything. However, space is filled mostly with empty space, and hitting the enemy ships might be a challenge. Furthermore, if the impactors are too large, the enemy could counter them by firing their own point-defense slugs and knocking the shells out of line. Therefore, I contend that the most effective kinetic space weapons would be either flak shells or actively thrusting, guided missiles. The flak shells would explode into a hail of fragmented shards, able to tear through un-armored systems of many craft at once without the shell directly hitting its target, or able to strike a target even after it tries to evade with a last-minute engine burn. The missiles would be a bit different from the missiles we are used to on Earth, which must continuously thrust to sustain flight. In space, such a weapon would rapidly exhaust its fuel and simply become a dummy shell. No, a space missile would either be fired as an unguided projectile and power up its engine after drifting most of the way to its target, or it would fire its engine in sporadic, short bursts.

In space, laser light will travel almost forever without dissipating from diffraction. Given a large enough power supply, lasers could be used at range to slice up enemy warships. The key phrase there, though, is "given a large enough power supply." Power is hard to come by in the space business. So, expect space laser weapons to take one of three forms: small lasers designed not to destroy, but to blind and confuse enemy sensors; medium-sized lasers that would be fired infrequently and aimed to melt specific vulnerable points on enemy space fighters, like antennae, gimbals, and maneuvering thrusters; and large lasers pumped by the discharge from a large capacitor or similar energy storage device to cut a physical slice into the enemy craft wherever they hit. Such a large weapon would likely only be fired at the very beginning of a battle, because the commander of a ship with such a weapon would not want to keep his capacitor charged when it might unexpectedly blow its energy all at once once he's in the thick of things.

 Desubot wrote:
Ya know depending on the political stand point im not actually sure if flakk would be possible.

The tough of having particles flying around and sling shotting all over the place nudging big asteroids and the likes doesn't sound like the kinda thing people would be ok with.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Ya know depending on the political stand point im not actually sure if flakk would be possible.

The tough of having particles flying around and sling shotting all over the place nudging big asteroids and the likes doesn't sound like the kinda thing people would be ok with.

Isn't our planet surrunded by space junk?

The leading warring nations of this planet still use cluster bombs and mines despite the fact we know the issues they cause from over 100 years ago.

We still clean up unexploded munitions from the first world war.

I would like to think future humans are better than we are, but I reckon they will be the same but with space weapons.

 Desubot wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Ya know depending on the political stand point im not actually sure if flakk would be possible.

The tough of having particles flying around and sling shotting all over the place nudging big asteroids and the likes doesn't sound like the kinda thing people would be ok with.

Isn't our planet surrunded by space junk?

The leading warring nations of this planet still use cluster bombs and mines despite the fact we know the issues they cause from over 100 years ago.

We still clean up unexploded munitions from the first world war.

I would like to think future humans are better than we are, but I reckon they will be the same but with space weapons.

Well yeah it wouldnt stop space terrorists and the likes.

 Laughing Man wrote:
It's already a huge consideration. We currently lose about one satellite per year to space junk, with a piddling 300,000 estimated projectiles. Destroying a decent sized object (the size of the ISS, for instance) in orbit would likely double that amount of debris, increasing the rate of attrition and the rate of debris propogation at the same time.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:
It's already a huge consideration. We currently lose about one satellite per year to space junk, with a piddling 300,000 estimated projectiles. Destroying a decent sized object (the size of the ISS, for instance) in orbit would likely double that amount of debris, increasing the rate of attrition and the rate of debris propogation at the same time.

This would be a good job for a laser actually... Unless it just turns the debris into hot debris.

 dusara217 wrote:
Realistically, warships in space would be spherical, pyramidal, or some kind of similar shape; studded with missile weapons, laser weapons, and projectile weapons (not to mention long-ranged sensors). The ship would have to be quite large, with sufficient room for dozens of weapons on each side of the craft to be withdrawn into the craft and have their portholes covered filled with thick metal flaps (similar to how Industrial-era galleons kept their cannons concealed behind wooden flaps in order to protect them from the salt spray) for when they weren't firing. Of course, the frames for these craft would have to be incredibly strong, as rapid course corrections in combat (conquering momentum) would put massive amounts of strain onto them, and that isn't even taking into account how mighty the hull and armour would need to be.

I'd say that Stargate: SG-1 gets space combat the most correct out of any Sci-Fi Universe.

 dusara217 wrote:
Realistically, warships in space would be spherical, pyramidal, or some kind of similar shape; studded with missile weapons, laser weapons, and projectile weapons (not to mention long-ranged sensors). The ship would have to be quite large, with sufficient room for dozens of weapons on each side of the craft to be withdrawn into the craft and have their portholes covered filled with thick metal flaps (similar to how Industrial-era galleons kept their cannons concealed behind wooden flaps in order to protect them from the salt spray) for when they weren't firing. Of course, the frames for these craft would have to be incredibly strong, as rapid course corrections in combat (conquering momentum) would put massive amounts of strain onto them, and that isn't even taking into account how mighty the hull and armour would need to be.

I'd say that Stargate: SG-1 gets space combat the most correct out of any Sci-Fi Universe.