SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread IX

[Lonestar]

Guys, I'll be disappearing for the next two weeks for out of town NUERSING.

Um, but after that I guess I will no longer have any out of town NUERSING. So, after that, we can finally get cracking on PRIME NOIR, PeZooks!

(Please wait up for me!)

OPERATION: SHROOMSTORM shall begin!


*Thousands of missiles launch*

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I would like to note that I calculated the required energy intensity basing on HiPER fast-fusion calcs and the claims of the UDD investigators that it's density does not require a compression stage, only ignition, and that FS duration pulses can ignite a fusion reaction.

The intensity would be ~10^20 W/cm2 (HiPER-like ignition with a single, one-sided pulse), I presumed that the pulse would last several femtoseconds.

This is possible with tabletops.
http://www.princeton.edu/mae/people/fac ... _new_type/

Hope I didn't screw up.

The best part is that set up is free space and not fiber. Erbium and Ytterbium doped femtosecond fiber lasers have been demonstrated and commercialized. Many of these fibers are designed for high quality pules and pulse trains because they are required to be in phase etc. And it's perfectly possible that in the near future, high power ones would be released. The most powerful fiber laser is currently at least 10KW single mode from a German company IPG Photonics. Squeeze that energy into femtosecond pulses, you get one heck of a high peak power.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Part of it is just an engineering issue, Stas. You're introducing a whole new bevy of manufactured products on an extremey large scale. Looking at the laser information, I don't see anything in principle to rule out the process, but I'd still have serious reservations about any kind of weaponization taking place within a short period of time. Video-Guided bombs weren't really feasable until the 1960s, 40 years after we had the first basic layout of the television. The very first primitive examples, not for 20. This is all about developing industrial processes to mass produce the necessary equipment... hardened to handle considerable amounts of force, acceleration, etc.

[MKSheppard]

Video-Guided bombs weren't really feasable until the 1960s, 40 years after we had the first basic layout of the television.

Actually, 20. Some TV Guided bombs were deployed in WWII, albeit experimentally.

[K. A. Pital]

Part of it is just an engineering issue, Stas.

That is understandable, but it's not like I'm saying that we already have an arsenal of doom or something. We are building it, and we're just at the very start of production. Making 1000 detonation-capable deuterium pellets is not what I'd call "armed and ready".

I don't see anything in principle to rule out the process, but I'd still have serious reservations about any kind of weaponization taking place within a short period of time.

It would take years if not decades to build a large arsenal of pellets and expendable lasers. The cost of the first warheads would be very expensive due to the fact that the high-power, expensive-capacitor lasers would have to be built as expendable items. Serial production of pellets is only the beginning, like I noted in the post.

This is all about developing industrial processes to mass produce the necessary equipment... hardened to handle considerable amounts of force, acceleration, etc.

Exactly, hence why we only introduced the pellets and test-detonations, but no actual warheads. There should be a commercial international demand for these weapons before we actually start mass producing FGNWs. And this is the goal of our Generals' commercial pitch.

Note that this is around 2018-2019, and the only thing he is talking about is the industrial pellet production line, not a whole host of already weaponized items like missile warheads, laser ignitors, etc. This is all for years to come. In any case I'm glad that upon consideration, our idea wasn't brushed off as a principal infeasibility.

We're thinking about a viable small arsenal of more or less compact deuterium-based FGNWs by, say, 2030 but no earlier (it's hard to produce the stuff!). Less compact weapons (I'm not going to spoil people here) may be deployed before that, say, in the 2020-2025 period, but these would be more like mines (land and sea), which would not have to endure acceleration stress on laser components, etc.

So I'm not saying we already set up the entire industrial complex for these weapons, exactly the contrary - we've called all CATO nations to invest in this yet-to-be complex, invest in construction and maintenance of production lines for weaponization of both ignitors and pellets. This is years from now. I went with the effects that the document about fourth-generation nuclear weapons implied (subkiloton compact weapons for intermediate sized arms...) and just phrased them in a commerical pitch.

That is a lot more careful than claims of "wideband stealth NOW" and "compact fusion reactors NOW" which the MESS already employed. Once again thanks for the input, when considering the actual design of those weapons, we'll take everything discussed here into consideration and limit their spread to realistic options only, as well as realistic terms of construction.

[Steve]

About that wideband stealth bit. It's been a while but I remember the argument, I'd like to hear the explanation for that.

[Beowulf]

About that wideband stealth bit. It's been a while but I remember the argument, I'd like to hear the explanation for that.

Stealth is essentially shaping. Radar absorbant materials only work so far in reducing an aircraft's RCS. It is primarily shape that permits the radical reduction in RCS that is termed stealth. Yes, different bands will have different effective RCS, however, wideband stealth is shaping such that the unevenness resulting from this is as low as possible. One of the primary effects that differences in wavelength has is that as feature(like canted vertical tails) size approaches the wavelength, it stops being effective in reducing RCS(the radar wave reflects in more directions). This is why wideband stealth as featured on the B-4 and MQ-19(they are effectively the same planform (X-47C in real life)) requires different shaping than higher frequency stealth (like the F-22 and F-35 exhibit) Stas has the relationship that RAM and shape have with stealth precisely backwards.

Stas has been complaining primarily about innovations that do not materially change the nature of the game. Fusion reactors that are so large as to still require mounting on a ship do not change naval warfare compared to a fission reactor. The predicted minimum size of a MW class reactor is about 3m in diameter. Wideband stealth doesn't significantly make an attack easier, given that high speed bombers would be taking out the low frequency radars before the slower stealth aircraft would make it into range.

The exact details of the polywell fusion reactor are probably classified, as a result of the USN funding of the development. However, it's known that they've gone through 7 different iterations of prototypes, each larger and more sophisticated than the last. The EMC2 Fusion just got a contract for prototype number 8, for about $8 mil. This prototype is supposed to be capable of conducting fusion of hydrogen and Boron-11. Additionally, as part of the contract, they are to develop plans for the 9th prototype (WB9). Although the polywell concept has thus far only been operated in a pulsed mode, this is largely due to power requirements from both the ion guns and the magnets. The pulses are known to have been for long enough for the apparatus to have reached a steady state in WB6 prototype. Part of the current contract is to develop ion guns that can keep the reactor fueled (allowing continuous operation). http://www.emc2fusion.org/ are the developers. The are apparently already in phase 2 of their development plan.

[Ryan Thunder]

Wideband stealth doesn't significantly make an attack easier, given that high speed bombers would be taking out the low frequency radars before the slower stealth aircraft would make it into range.

So by your own admission, you are wasting your money. Why?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The exact details of the polywell fusion reactor are probably classified, as a result of the USN funding of the development. However, it's known that they've gone through 7 different iterations of prototypes, each larger and more sophisticated than the last. The EMC2 Fusion just got a contract for prototype number 8, for about $8 mil. This prototype is supposed to be capable of conducting fusion of hydrogen and Boron-11. Additionally, as part of the contract, they are to develop plans for the 9th prototype (WB9). Although the polywell concept has thus far only been operated in a pulsed mode, this is largely due to power requirements from both the ion guns and the magnets. The pulses are known to have been for long enough for the apparatus to have reached a steady state in WB6 prototype. Part of the current contract is to develop ion guns that can keep the reactor fueled (allowing continuous operation). http://www.emc2fusion.org/ are the developers. The are apparently already in phase 2 of their development plan.

No, the complaint is not so much whether innovations change the game, but rather the fact that you people are trotting out stuff based on the claim that some idiot on earth claims that it works so and so. Never mind that polywell fusion has up to the latest prototype not produced any result that indicates that it will produce net power gain. And what happens when you want to scale up the plasma volume etc. etc. etc. to increase the fusion rate and so forth? The trap depth has to increase to handle the plasma and more often than not, it's a nonlinear increase and there will be a point where the rate of returns are very low.

[Lonestar]

So by your own admission, you are wasting your money. Why?

So they will be more effective against mobile radar systems like the PAC Family or S-3000 series, dumbass. Stealth doesn't work against gi-normous IADS with gi-normous tracking radars because, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the amount of energy dumped into the air can simply cause the stealth aircraft to heat up enough to be found through IR sensors. So stealth isn't intended for piercing the primary IADS, but for avoiding second and third tier IADS...like Iraq's...or yours.

[K. A. Pital]

Stealth doesn't work against gi-normous IADS with gi-normous tracking radars

Of course that never stopped Beowulf from claiming it does in fact work against ginormous tracking radars, unless he meant strictly mobile OTH radars which are limited in output power by virtue of mobility. In that case he should've explicitly kept it to that.

[Lonestar]

Of course that never stopped Beowulf from claiming it does in fact work against ginormous tracking radars, unless he meant strictly mobile OTH radars which are limited in output power by virtue of mobility. In that case he should've explicitly kept it to that.

I don't know if he mentioned it in the story thread, but he did to me in an IM.

[Beowulf]

As I recall, you started going off on a non-sequitur over ballistic missile early warning radars, which operate at entirely different frequencies (and much, much higher frequencies) and and on entirely different principles than an over the horizon radar. At that point, I mentally kill-filed your responses.

Fin:
I am not a plasma physicist. Dr Robert Bussard was. Dr Richard Nebel is. The US Navy believes that this type of reactor has a good chance of working (otherwise it wouldn't be funded). You want to know how the system behaves when you increase the trap depth, ask Dr Nebel. What I know is that it has a hell of a lot better chance of working than tokamak style designs, which have been plagued with plasma instability problems.

[K. A. Pital]

As I recall, you started going off on a non-sequitur over ballistic missile early warning radars

Some of which are OTH radars, like say Duga or JORN. It took me some time to figure out the nature of involved radars since I'm not a radar specialist much like you are not a nuclear physicist. So would you claim that it would be still effective against static, high-powered OTH radars, or not? And in case it doesn't, against which OTH radars does it work?

[Lonestar]

Some of which are OTH radars, like say Duga or JORN. It took me some time to figure out the nature of involved radars since I'm not a radar specialist much like you are not a nuclear physicist. So would you claim that it would be still effective against static, high-powered OTH radars, or not? And in case it doesn't, against which OTH radars does it work?

Stealth wouldn't work against Static(and I am including SPY-family radars on ships with this) OTH systems because the nature of them being static means they can have bigger/better radars that put more energy into the atmosphere, heating up aircraft to the point that they can be picked up on IR sensors.

Stealth bomber aircraft would be used during a second wave attack(maybe even third), not right off.

[Ryan Thunder]

...or yours.

You do realize that attacking me would bring CATO down on you so fast you wouldn't have time to shit yourself, right?

[Beowulf]

A couple reasons why OTH radars won't be able to detect the B-4.

First, OTH radar works by reflecting off the ionosphere, reflecting off the object, and reflecting off the ionosphere again to go back to the radar. The better the object approximates a flat plate, the more of the energy that will end up getting reflected up and away from the radar. Once the aircraft gets sufficiently close, this results in the aircraft actually bouncing most of the radar energy back... but this may be close enough that it can't actually detect that close (OTH radars have minimum ranges, because they have to bounce off the ionosphere).

Second is the diffraction limiting of the beam limits the power you can put into a point. You can't heat up the B-4 enough.
diffraction limit:
width at range = 1.22 * wavelength * distance/radar size
Assumptions
10MW radar
1km long radar
100m high
1500km range
30 MHz radar

area: ~18kmx180km (oval shaped because the radar doesn't have identical height and width)
or: ~.3 W/m^2

That amount is nowhere near enough to cause appreciable heating. There's relatively little you can do to improve that radiation figure. The figure isn't precisely accurate, because the power distribution is somewhat more gaussian shaped (peak in the center, going to zero at the listed limit, followed by a rise in the side-lobe).

RAM doesn't work at those frequencies. If the radar isn't absorbed, it won't heat up the aircraft. Thus, you can't detect by IR emission from heating.

Even if it did heat up, modern stealth aircraft are coated with tailored emissivity coatings, in order to have the heat of the aircraft be primarily be emitted in bands that absorbed by the atmosphere, thus limiting detection. (The aircraft isn't a black body radiator, in other words)

Lastly, if none of the above were true, it'd still be over the horizon, and thus not visible in an IR scope (can't see through the ground).

Over the horizon radars that do work are OTH-SW type radars, which are of such low frequency that no amount of shaping could hope to work, simply because you'd need to be so huge that it'd not matter. On the flipside, they're so low frequency that jamming works really, really well against them. For that matter, jamming works pretty well against conventional ionospheric reflection OTH radars. Jindalee type radars are more likely to pick up a raid at range, because of the multi-static property, but such detection is dependant on transmitter/reciever geometry and aircraft attitude. A well planned raid would still be able to mostly avoid the locations/headings where detection would be likely, resulting in mostly radar ghosts appearing. Some of the above fails to apply to surface ducted radars such as the SPY-1, but the SPY-1 has a much lower range than surface wave or ionospheric bounce OTH radars.

[Lonestar]

You do realize that attacking me would bring CATO down on you so fast you wouldn't have time to shit yourself, right?

You must have been reading the wrong thread if you think I'm particularly afraid of CATO.

[MKSheppard]

That's all nice and nice, but that still doesn't defeat huge ass VHF mobile radars

[Ryan Thunder]

You do realize that attacking me would bring CATO down on you so fast you wouldn't have time to shit yourself, right?

You must have been reading the wrong thread if you think I'm particularly afraid of CATO.

Well, I do think you're a moron and a terrible roleplayer. Your take on the strategic situation would go right in line with that assessment.

[Master_Baerne]

Gentlemen, really. In-character mudslinging is all well and good, but this OOC crap is ridiculous.

[Beowulf]

You do realize that attacking me would bring CATO down on you so fast you wouldn't have time to shit yourself, right?

You must have been reading the wrong thread if you think I'm particularly afraid of CATO.

Well, I do think you're a moron and a terrible roleplayer. Your take on the strategic situation would go right in line with that assessment.

Project much?

[K. A. Pital]

You don't really need to be "afraid" of CATO, you should just remember that picking fights with us will bring endgame.

Also, "...time, precious time..."

[CmdrWilkens]

Shep its the PACIFIC Union not the Cascadian Union.

Also this came out of nowhere so if it goes un-modded I'm gonna write up a WIN/WCGS incident response for tomorrow morning.

[Ryan Thunder]

Project much?

This, coming from the guy who inflated the Costas' ORBAT up to ridiculous levels and then proceeded to dictate the actions of other player armies that were not under his control so he could do more damage? That's rich.