Lasers, Particle Cannons and Ion Cannons

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-01-18 04:57pm

Lasers, Particle Cannons and Ion Cannons; all three deliver energy to a target for the purpose of destruction. However, what advantages would one have over the others? Why would a theorical military employ particle cannons over lasers (or vice versa). For simplicity, lets assume that all three are delivering the same amount of energy (unless its far easier to make one more energetic than the others).

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-18 05:00pm

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/ ... m#Contents

Why, I do believe there is a topic in the Other Sci-Fi forum on this very subject.

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-18 06:25pm

Attempt at plargizing (sp) detected.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2003-01-18 06:37pm

from that report wrote:Once again a small but capably armed country is threatening to seize its smaller but resource-rich neighbor. The Global News Network reports that the border has been violated. The same old story? No, the plot twists as a sophisticated satellite surveillance and reconnaissance system tracks the belligerent nation's leader. As he steps to the podium to incite his troops to greater violence, a blinding light from above vaporizes him and his podium leaving even his bodyguards untouched. His smarter brother, the second in command, countermands the invasion orders and in 12 hours the borders are restored. Stability, if not peace, reigns again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-18 06:40pm

Seggybop wrote:
from that report wrote:Once again a small but capably armed country is threatening to seize its smaller but resource-rich neighbor. The Global News Network reports that the border has been violated. The same old story? No, the plot twists as a sophisticated satellite surveillance and reconnaissance system tracks the belligerent nation's leader. As he steps to the podium to incite his troops to greater violence, a blinding light from above vaporizes him and his podium leaving even his bodyguards untouched. His smarter brother, the second in command, countermands the invasion orders and in 12 hours the borders are restored. Stability, if not peace, reigns again.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Welcome to the 21st Century.

Of course using that weapon as described would probably cause a thermal expansion that would blow many back, but not much more.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-01-18 06:52pm

That would rock. Imagine nailing a terrorist training camp with an energy weapon like that! Muhahaha!

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-01-18 08:22pm

Whoever wrote that report has been watching too many James Bond movies among other things. Let's see, they mention a space laser (Diamonds are Forever), an EMP device (GoldenEye), and a space mirror of doom (Die Another Day). Out of all these I think only the space laser has a chance of being built within the next 30-50 years.

Back to the question, an ion cannon would work wonders at frying electronics in the target, but I think it'll have a shorter range than the other 2 weapons. Unless your target has developed ray or particle sheilding, there's no real advantage for having either particle beams or lasers. In real life use you can get a much higher power output for a laser given that the 2 of them are about the same size. A laser that fits on top of my desk can burn holes through metal, while I'd be lucky to get a particle beam device of any significant power that fits inside my house. All this stuff is way off in the future, and it's still to early to speculate on what they can do.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-18 09:47pm

aerius wrote:Whoever wrote that report has been watching too many James Bond movies among other things. Let's see, they mention a space laser (Diamonds are Forever), an EMP device (GoldenEye), and a space mirror of doom (Die Another Day). Out of all these I think only the space laser has a chance of being built within the next 30-50 years.

Funny, the USAF must be smoking crack since it is THEIR document. I guess that makes the DoD a bunch of morons? And a space mirror weapon is not undoable, the Russians have already placed decent mirrors in space. Laser systems are viable once you have the power source but particle beams are a little more tricky. Last I checked, detonating a nuke in LEO to get an EMP effect wasn't the trademark of a galaxy spanning empire, it is perfectly doable if you calculate it right and make it tactically feasible. http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/2025/

But you must know better, tsk, lasers in our lifetime? Craaaazy!

Back to the question, an ion cannon would work wonders at frying electronics in the target, but I think it'll have a shorter range than the other 2 weapons. Unless your target has developed ray or particle sheilding, there's no real advantage for having either particle beams or lasers. In real life use you can get a much higher power output for a laser given that the 2 of them are about the same size. A laser that fits on top of my desk can burn holes through metal, while I'd be lucky to get a particle beam device of any significant power that fits inside my house. All this stuff is way off in the future, and it's still to early to speculate on what they can do.

The ion cannon would do shit in an atmosphere since it would be easily distorted by thermal blooming and over ionisation, but it would be better than an NPB. Microwave weapons are far more effective at EMP effects and not weather dependent.

And you don't understand, particle beams are inherently more powerful than lasers given by the way they deliver their energy load.

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-18 10:04pm

What about plasma weapons? I know they'll be shitty in an atmosphere, but right now Boeing is working on plasma weapons. It's a kind of cannon that harnesses plasma into a magnetic field and shoots it out the barrel, like a railgun. It'll be shortrange, though.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-18 10:12pm

a plasma weapon? Pft. Useless. itll disperse more quickly in space then it would in atmosphere since theres no atmospheric pressure keeping it in a soemwhat tight ball. Oh sure, itll be charged, but that wont do anything.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-01-18 10:13pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Funny, the USAF must be smoking crack since it is THEIR document. I guess that makes the DoD a bunch of morons? And a space mirror weapon is not undoable, the Russians have already placed decent mirrors in space. Laser systems are viable once you have the power source but particle beams are a little more tricky. Last I checked, detonating a nuke in LEO to get an EMP effect wasn't the trademark of a galaxy spanning empire, it is perfectly doable if you calculate it right and make it tactically feasible. http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/2025/

But you must know better, tsk, lasers in our lifetime? Craaaazy!

Yes, I know where it comes from, and frankly it sounds more like a brainstorm for ideas than anything else. In fact if you were to go here it clearly states that it's more or less a speculative thought excersise.
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/2025/quicklk.htm

The ion cannon would do shit in an atmosphere since it would be easily distorted by thermal blooming and over ionisation, but it would be better than an NPB. Microwave weapons are far more effective at EMP effects and not weather dependent.

Agreed, I left out the part about being used in space while flipping between posts. Sorry 'bout that.

And you don't understand, particle beams are inherently more powerful than lasers given by the way they deliver their energy load.

That is questionable, considering that we already have a petawatt laser that can blow atoms apart. So besides burning though whatever it hits, a high power laser will also cause particle beam effects. From a post I just made in another thread.

Here's link to the Petawatt Laser they have over at Lawrence Livermore Labs, and a few choice excerpts of what it can do.

"The Petawatt laser achieved a focused power density approaching 10^21 W/cm2 (almost a sextillion watts of energy concentrated on a square centimeter) and an energy density of 30 billion joules in a cubic centimeter-far exceeding the energy density inside stars. The associated electric fields are so strong-approximately a thousand times stronger than those that bind electrons to atomic nuclei-that they strip electrons off atoms and accelerate them to relativistic velocity (that is, comparable to the speed of light)."

"The intense beam of Livermore's Petawatt laser was powerful enough to break up atoms by causing reactions in their nuclei. Accelerated by the laser, electrons traveling at nearly the speed of light collided with nuclei in a gold foil target, producing gamma rays that knocked out some of the neutrons from other gold nuclei and caused the gold to decay into elements such as platinum. Gamma rays also zoomed in on a layer of uranium sitting behind the gold and split uranium nuclei into lighter elements. Before the Petawatt, all of these effects had been solely in the domain of particle accelerators or nuclear reactors.
Accelerated to energies exceeding 100 megaelectronvolts, the electrons in the gold targets produced high-energy x rays. These in turn decayed into pairs of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, in such large numbers as to possibly generate an electron-positron plasma, never before created in the laboratory. An intense beam of protons also turned up. Not only was the Petawatt the most powerful laser in the world, but, unexpectedly, it also was a powerful ion accelerator."

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-18 10:25pm

aerius wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Funny, the USAF must be smoking crack since it is THEIR document. I guess that makes the DoD a bunch of morons? And a space mirror weapon is not undoable, the Russians have already placed decent mirrors in space. Laser systems are viable once you have the power source but particle beams are a little more tricky. Last I checked, detonating a nuke in LEO to get an EMP effect wasn't the trademark of a galaxy spanning empire, it is perfectly doable if you calculate it right and make it tactically feasible. http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/2025/

But you must know better, tsk, lasers in our lifetime? Craaaazy!
Yes, I know where it comes from, and frankly it sounds more like a brainstorm for ideas than anything else. In fact if you were to go here it clearly states that it's more or less a speculative thought excersise.
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/2025/quicklk.htm

It is a brainstorm of ideas, nothing more. I didn't say we could these things with modern tech or even near future tech, letalone thinking of the moral issues with it.

The ion cannon would do shit in an atmosphere since it would be easily distorted by thermal blooming and over ionisation, but it would be better than an NPB. Microwave weapons are far more effective at EMP effects and not weather dependent.

Agreed, I left out the part about being used in space while flipping between posts. Sorry 'bout that.

Yeah, same thing with people asking about plasma cannons. Unless they have magical fields holding the bolt together, nuh-uh.

And you don't understand, particle beams are inherently more powerful than lasers given by the way they deliver their energy load.

That is questionable, considering that we already have a petawatt laser that can blow atoms apart. So besides burning though whatever it hits, a high power laser will also cause particle beam effects. From a post I just made in another thread.

Yeah, I have seen that and even read about the most powerful laser today, the VULCAN laser at the Rutherford institute near Oxford I think. But it only delivers a small amount of energy in reality IIRC, not reallty weapons grade else they could be used for a whole manner of nice applications. I'll dig more into it but I recall someone I asked months ago about it being a weapon saying it would do squat. Things can only get better though.

Here's link to the Petawatt Laser they have over at Lawrence Livermore Labs, and a few choice excerpts of what it can do.

"The Petawatt laser achieved a focused power density approaching 10^21 W/cm2 (almost a sextillion watts of energy concentrated on a square centimeter) and an energy density of 30 billion joules in a cubic centimeter-far exceeding the energy density inside stars. The associated electric fields are so strong-approximately a thousand times stronger than those that bind electrons to atomic nuclei-that they strip electrons off atoms and accelerate them to relativistic velocity (that is, comparable to the speed of light)."

"The intense beam of Livermore's Petawatt laser was powerful enough to break up atoms by causing reactions in their nuclei. Accelerated by the laser, electrons traveling at nearly the speed of light collided with nuclei in a gold foil target, producing gamma rays that knocked out some of the neutrons from other gold nuclei and caused the gold to decay into elements such as platinum. Gamma rays also zoomed in on a layer of uranium sitting behind the gold and split uranium nuclei into lighter elements. Before the Petawatt, all of these effects had been solely in the domain of particle accelerators or nuclear reactors.
Accelerated to energies exceeding 100 megaelectronvolts, the electrons in the gold targets produced high-energy x rays. These in turn decayed into pairs of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, in such large numbers as to possibly generate an electron-positron plasma, never before created in the laboratory. An intense beam of protons also turned up. Not only was the Petawatt the most powerful laser in the world, but, unexpectedly, it also was a powerful ion accelerator."

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-01-18 10:32pm

a plasma weapon? Pft. Useless. itll disperse more quickly in space then it would in atmosphere since theres no atmospheric pressure keeping it in a soemwhat tight ball. Oh sure, itll be charged, but that wont do anything.

Even if we can speed the plasma bolt up to hypersonic velocities, will the same thing happen?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-18 10:53pm

jaeger, dispersion will continue at the same rate. if after 5 seconds the plasma has expanded to 10 times its original volume, then it will do so no matter what speed, 0 kph or mach 7. It would actually disperse quicker at higher speeds, atleast in the atmosphere, because turbulence mixes it with the surrounding air. But it doesnt matter anyway because plasma is inherently low pressure which has poor thermal conductivity! and the temperature of the plasma will be, what, 10,000 degrees? that would provide less energy then a laser or particle beam or BULLET. plasma weapons are pointless.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-18 11:02pm

Nearest you could get to would be a semi-molten solid slug that was superheated via laser prior to ejection, but still...

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-01-18 11:20pm

The idea of a government, ANY government with space based weaponry of that nature is quite disturbing. If the US had this, it would not be 2 weeks before the entire world was completely and utterly submissive, and if conservatives were in power, then expect to see a severe drop in non-christian compliance. Theocracy would have a better chance in a world where one power has control over all others.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-18 11:24pm

Valdy, wouldnt it be easier to just use high amperage to liquify the metal? Or thermite?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-01-18 11:34pm

kojikun wrote:Valdy, wouldnt it be easier to just use high amperage to liquify the metal? Or thermite?

Thermite would be much simpler since it is nonexplosive but easily melts steel, however that is extra resources required when a laser could be just as adequate and also control the temp of the solid slug to fire. Naturally a highly dense metal made molten will work better than a bolt of hydrogen/helium plasma if only due to the rate of material and thermal bleed off enroute to the target.

Simply put, it is best to use solid kinetic kill projectiles from that of a railgun, or a particle beam cannon or laser. A combo would be far more prone to failure and also overly complicated.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2003-01-21 12:42am

We already know they're developing lasers as fighter and point-defense weapons. Given the money being dumped into it, and the inevitable march of technology, we'll have lasers that can strike with appreciable energy from orbit soon enough.