Anti-Armor/spacecraft Teleportation weapon

[Nyrath]

Niven does say that if there exists a teleportation device that does not require a receiver, or a teleportation device that does not require a transmitter, plus a planet that has more than one nation, the result is an instant war which lasts until both sides have had their technology base destroyed to the point where they cannot use any teleportation devices.

Only if the device requires both a transmitter and a receiver can this be avoided.

[Nyrath]

From The Theory And Practice of Teleportation by Larry Niven

(I) THE ASSUMPTION: We don't need a transmitter. Our teleport receiver will bring anything to itself, from anywhere. Limitations may exist as to distance or mass of cargo.
THE RESULT: Thieves capable of stealing anything from anyone in perfect safety. Such machinery was discovered by Seaton, and later by DuQuesne, in THE SKYLARK OF SPACE. In practice, anyone who has such machinery is king of the world. If many men have transmitterless receivers, society falls apart. When society stops making parts for the machines, the machines fall apart, and everything starts over.

(II) THE ASSUMPTION: No receiver is needed. Our teleport transmitter will place its cargo anywhere we choose.
THE RESULT: We can put a bomb anywhere. The idea was used at least once, in THE PERSON FROM PORLOCK. In practice, a government that owned one of these would-again-own the world. Two such governments would probably bomb each other back to a preteleport level of civilization. Presumably it could happen any number of times.

Given the assumptions in (I) and (II) you don't really get a society. You get a short war. Hence most stories assume that teleportation requires both a transmitter and a receiver.

However, it is difficult to see how a teleportation device that requires both a transmitter and receiver can be used as a weapon.

[Simon_Jester]

Although Niven does not, in this, foresee any role for teleport-denial systems. Teleport-denial (as in Schlock Mercenary) resets things back to a normal-ish state of affairs, even when the teleporter in question needs neither a transmitter nor a receiver, as seen here in Schlock itself:

[Uraniun235]

edit: nevermind

[Number Theoretic]

However, it is difficult to see how a teleportation device that requires both a transmitter and receiver can be used as a weapon.

If the costs of building a transmitter and receiver are not too high and the receiver can be built small enough, it can still be used to create small missiles with ridiculous power: if the warhead can be teleported to the missile just a microsecond before detonation, it's mass can be neglected when designing the missile.

[Batman]

Its volume, however, can not. And frankly if the receiver is that compact I wouldn't bother with the missile to begin with, which can be shot down afterall. Just find a way to get the receiver close to the intended target.

[sirocco]

I think this is the purpose of the missile. In this setting missiles are meant to deliver receivers instead of warhead, assuming receiver are relatively cheap to produce. Once they have reached their target, you can teleport any type of warhead you want.

You could even use that as leverage against an enemy. It's the same thing as posing a bomb that can be controlled by a remote control and blackmailing the authorities.

The main problem with this is to have to avoid by any mean possible the retrieval of one of your receiver by your enemy. Because they might be able to find how to hack into it and 'redirect' your teleportation somewhere safe (middle of the desert or the ocean for example)

[Batman]

Yeah. I mean simply destroying it would be patently silly.

[Sea Skimmer]

If you had a missile with a teleporter, it might as well be a UCAV, if perhaps still an expendable one, and strike a whole series of targets by simply dropping the warheads on them.