Weapon Accuracy (using TLs as an example)

[kojikun]

I've been thinking about the amount of movement the local gun would need to make in order to be decently accurate at very long distances. To me it would seem that a turbolaser (or any other similar weapon such as phasers or laser turrets) would need to be able to cover one barrel width at combat distance. In other words, the weapon would need to move itself so that at x number of meters the weapon can hit with an accuracy of the width of the barrel, otherwise it would miss anything between the hit spots.



In order for the turbolaser to do this as combat distance (atleast 1 ship length) it needs to have some good accuracy. If a typical DS TL barrel is atleast 10 meters long (TL commentary) then the barrel is say 1/3 of a meter in diameter. If we say typical fighting range is about a kilometre (which is totally too low but bear with me) then we can say that the turbolaser has to be able to adjust its position so that the laser will strike every 1/3 of a metre along the imaginary circle at 1 kilometre distance.

This means that the turbolaser has to be able to adjust itself to 1/9000 the circumference of the circle made by the radius equal to its length. Using the 10 meter figure, we can find that the the circumference of a 10 meter radius circle is about 31 meters. 1/9000 of that is 0.003 meters, or 3 millimeters.

You figure that targets are moving, and at a greater distance, and you can see how precise the movement would have to be.

That is all.

[kojikun]

Bah. Stupid geocities