Point Defence in Space Combat

[@Spacedock]

Get 'Designing The Perfect Space Fighter' here! www.patreon.com/posts/77243474

[@televized1781]

2:35 hey that's from the game Nebulous: Fleet Command!! Cool Space battle game!

[@someopinion]

Will you ever make a short about the Argo from KOTM?

[@ShadowWolfTJC]

Does anyone know what the music is from the beginning of the video, where the advertisement is being played? I recently checked out Battlezone 1 and 2's OSTs, and I've heard nothing like it within either game's soundtracks.

[@TheArklyte]

What I don't get is why you don't mention multiple stage laser weapons neither here, nor in energy weapons episode.

[@squashiejoshie200000]

For the first 3 minutes, you missed a key point. The effective range of simple kinetic projectiles in space is infinite in terms of kill capability, meaning a shot fired from 100m will have almost the same power as a shot fired from the other side of the sun. The only thing that realistically limits the effective range is reliable accuracy, which for beam weapons like lasers also means dispersion. Missiles become extremely close range unless they can disable their booster to conserve fuel, but if they can do that, their range becomes effectively infinite. Projectile cannons, however propelled rely purely on volume of fire, as in the ranges involved in space, there's no way to ensure total accuracy. If the cannon's barrel deviates each round by 0.0001 degrees, then by the time you're shooting at the moon from Earth, you're off by over 600m. And that's an incredibly small distance in space. One which would take a laser only about 1 second. The answer to this, and the optimal point defense weapon is one that can, at the maximum range, introduce an equivalent level of deviation into a target: A self-guiding rocket propelled directional warhead, shooting a series of dense ball bearings intended to damage any guidance system on the target and introduce deviation into the target at maximum range. Any deviation is sufficient if the target can't self-correct, as at any reasonable engagement range (one that provides maximum survivability to ship and crew while giving the possibility to destroy the enemy ship) the projectile can be made to pass by if it is mobility killed. But also to note, this applies to every solid weapon, and not just traditional guided weapons. It's effective against kinetic kill weapons, and basic projectile weapons as the target deviation is so minor that even individual strikes from the countermunition that do not destroy the target will introduce sufficient deviation to make it miss.

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

One very cool detail in _The Expanse_ is that the PDC's have their own thrusters to counteract the effect of the recoil on the ship.

[@BogeyTheBear]

Which brings up the question: Are they actually micropulse thrusters, or rather vented propellant gas being expanded against a nozzle? The former is an independent reaction engine that has to synchronise itself to the weapon's firing cycle, while the latter is essentially a plain, ordinary recoilless gun.

[@blueflames6961]

I think it's just vented propellant gas from the gun. I guess it still counts as a "rocket" by definition. This concept has been used in real life to create recoiless rifles (e.g. M40 recoiless rifle developed by the US). Still a very neat little detail, just goes to show how much attention to detail The Expanse has.

[@marschma]

i think its more a recoilless gun, which exists for quite some time. Basically you have more explosive in the ammo and the barrel is open to both sides. equal force exits both directions and the forces cancel out, which is why you can mount them to a jeep or other light things.

[@ian5395]

If I'm venting prop gas, I'm gimping the shell. If I'm using small rcs thrusters at main-engine-delta-v, that's efficient.

[@christophedlauer1443]

​@@ian5395 Your comment made zero sense. Zero. The shells in a recoilless rifle do get battered, but nobody cares much. RCS thrusters are not connected to main engines. They are usually monopropellant or gas fueled and have a very different purpose then main thrusters. Even in a fictional world where all thrusters run on thrustium equally -you would keep these systems seperate as they are quite different in nature. Delta - V or Change in Velocity is not an attribute of any engine past, present or future.

[@ryderlynch2281]

I'm probably not the first to mention the Honorverse here, but I've always thought the type of layered defense it portrays worked well. Countermissiles for extended range interception, point defense laser clusters for close-in defense, and decoys, jamming, and ECM for additional defense. Honorverse attack missiles are mentioned as maneuvering to evade defensive fire too and supported by penetration aids or "penaids" to defeat defensive fire.

[@benlyon4739]

Before the development of the laser cluster a lot of navies used autocannons, (a lot of SLN ships still have their original defensive systems). with the creation of the CLAC and the evolution of the LAC from being a suicide ship (lucky to get its missiles away before they get fried by something bigger and meaner than they are) to being something like a torpedo bomber, to being an active part of a fleets defensive fire plans and adding another layer to the defensive onion in the face of the obscene numbers of missiles that fleets were throwing at each other by 1920PD. Finally theres the last defensive option that is unique to Honorverse captains, rolling ship. You beat me by 42 minutes

[@ryderlynch2281]

@@benlyon4739 True, though rolling ship was a defensive method unique to warships of the Honorverse as it relied on the stress bands of their impeller drives to protect their dorsal and ventral sides, essentially presenting an impenetrable wall in space. Another innovation was the countermissile pods the Mesan introduced in the final Crown of Slaves novel before Eric Flint passed. Should we see anymore novels set in the universe post 1920 PD, I'm certain we'll see Manticore, Grayson, and Haven utilizing that technology. At least in a system defense role. Not sure if a mixed load out of missile and countermissile pods would be useful on an SD(P). It sounds like diminishing your offensive firepower in favor of increasing your defensive firepower.

[@xyro3633]

For Honor? Didn't know they had AA

[@vincegalila7211]

​@@ryderlynch2281seems like you could just devote the screen to defensive firepower. The only tactic I think that any less advanced polity could use against the SDN(P)s is engaging them in Hyperspace. Using the compressed ranges to one's advantage.

[@SkyHawk2137]

​@@ryderlynch2281 My guess would be that they absolutely would have SD(P)s using countermissile pods, but it would most likely be relatively minimal in standard practice. Though if you are going in for a fleet battle or system strike, then they'd likely bulk up on them. Because the big thing about the missile pods is how they increase the size of salvos. So having the ability to double your countermissile launch weight for the first major true salvo, rather than a testing strike, of the battle would count a lot. As it then means the enemy needs to add (for the example's sake) half again as many missile pods to said salvo in order to be sure they'll get some damage in, thus drawing out how long it takes until the battle really kicks off, so on and so forth. After all, your opponent will rapidly be able to learn how strong your in-built missile interception is during a war which will give them a decent margin of error for how many missile pods they need to be firing off before they can expect any serious damage to start happening. This then greatly eases their tactical and strategic planning for how to fight the battles. But the moment you add in countermissile pods, you need to start asking the question of 'but what if they swap out half their missile pods for countermissiles, how many missile pods will we need to be launching in a salvo then?' Ironically, that's probably one of the things which might see 'direct fire' ships regain some prominence. Not because they're any more lethal but rather because all of a sudden, your opponent needs to wonder if they've got enough missile pods to overwhelm your interception capability before the 'gun' ships get into range. Or are they just 'lucky' and you are using a heavy missile load out and thus everyone's going to take a lot of damage and those gun ships are purely to eat shots instead of the more valuable podnaughts or because they've been modified for use as superheavy point defence vessels... All of which before we add in stealth like some of the other Mesan developments were but that's an entirely different, if related, conversation.

[@dovahkiin_yol]

Anti missile missile missile missile missile missile. -Quote of me explaining the tactics in my sci fi setting

[@Debbiebabe69]

Congratulations, you have invented the railgun.

[@WackoMcGoose]

Just like a combo chain of spell-dispeller reactions in D&D (congrats, you all wasted your reactions this round) or chains of dimming chip counters in Battle Network, where only the _final_ chip from each player actually goes through and all previous ones are just wasted.

[@planetfall5056]

Wouldn't it be an anti anti anti anti anti anti anti missile missile missile missile missile missile?

[@robertagren9360]

You were chosen one, you should bring order to the missiles not joint them.

[@TaintedMojo]

YOU BECAME THE VERY THING YOU SWORE TO DESTROY

[@cmedtheuniverseofcmed8775]

Homeworld introduced a cool concept such as Drone Frigates. These ships would launch a plethora of small gun drones that would form a sphere around the ship. The drones' goal was to destroy fighters and serve as point defense, and because they were free from the ship, the drones could aim anywhere without being attached to the ship.

[@pierre-mariecaulliez6285]

Homeworld Cataclysme introduced an even better option : Multibeam Frigates ! A handful of these in wall formation could decimate any amount of fighter squadrons in seconds.

[@artembentsionov]

@@pierre-mariecaulliez6285Cataclysm also had the Hive frigate, which was an evolution of the earlier drone frigate coupled with an assault frigate. It had its own main gun plus could launch 8 drones that did a lot more than just act as a screen, almost like fighters on their own

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Having unmanned defensive fighters is actually a really smart idea. In space there is no gravity pull downwards or air resistance, so once they are sent out, they stay in position. Without pilot they don't need a cockpit or life support and the space can be used for more ammo, or just make the thing smaller. Sure, ammo is a concern, but that would apply to the ship's main guns as well. On the other hand, they could also crash into enemy fire as a last resort.

[@stephenbernard3003]

@@HappyBeezerStudiosit’s actually harder in space. The problem is the engines. Every drone you launch has to maintain the speed and acceleration of their mother ship or they’ll rapidly get lost. That’s a non trivial problem to maintaining separate weapon platforms.

[@tomk3732]

That is essentially a drone fighter. Main problem is that in fast paced space combat you would need far more of these drones than your ship could carry.

[@joaomiguelmoreira6363]

I'd say that space combat is a setting in which Flak makes even more sense. Imagine thousands of pieces of Tungsten flying infinitely across all directions

[@gummihu]

Well... YOU ARE RUINING SOMEONES DAY, SOMEWHERE AND SOMETIME.

[@ravager2-636]

Cause screw you friendly fighter craft, search and rescue & repair crews both during and after the battle.. 😂

[@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem]

​@@gummihu That was fun to listen to.

[@zachjones6944]

A polymer would make more sense as it could degrade over time.

[@RorikH]

Well, maybe. Space is really big, so you'd need an insane volume of flak to actually block all possible missile paths. Still cool as hell though.

[@DocWolph]

8:50 Thruster enabled flight. It is just so mesmerizing to see.

[@CantankerousDave]

And downright scary to hear.

[@chaost4544]

I was about to make a similar comment. It's mesmerizing but also mindboggling how far military technology has come.

[@Mannchini]

It’s implied that the missiles in The Expanse do fly evasion patterns. Holden mentions it in S5.

[@akulatraxus9153]

The books talk about them jinking and strafing as well. It's just in the graphics used in the show they always seem to use their main thruster to dodge and never their RCS.

[@Tom-yp7cq]

I seem to remember the Donnager bridge crew in the TV series talking about their adversary's missiles having far better guidance systems than they expected. There will be practical limitations to this as well. Steer or strafe too much and a missile closing at high speed could miss the target. Also. the RCS on a missile will be much more limited in terms of fuel and thrust than the super powerful and fuel efficient Epstein drive.

[@Sky_Guy]

The Expanse is also a special case because the acceleration in the show is basically magic. Cheap Belter missiles especially seem to be barely able to keep up with Martian ships. The clip he showed of the Zmeya pursuit showed that after spreading out, the Zmeya's missiles basically had to "fall" onto the Roci because they needed to be constantly thrusting forward to even have a chance to catch her.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@Tom-yp7cqexactly. No matter what adjustments you make, they’re going to be broadly coming toward you. So that’s all the paths away from you eliminated. And it can’t be purely random movement because that’s just brownian motion in that axis, which a small scatter field would take out. So then it’s a cat and mouse game between the ship’s tracking and prediction algorithm and the missile’s. Whether it has local guidance or remote, the missile is at the disadvantage when it comes to path prediction due to compute power or latency. Yet even so, the PDCs are said to miss missiles fairly often! I don’t think the missiles seem particularly too easy to hit given all that.

[@thomasfplm]

Not only mentioned, but it is also shown in some of the battles.

[@underpaidmook]

Nebulous: Fleet Command really gets that emphasis of having a good PD net; especially for capital ships and their escorts. Having a mix of 20mm rotary cannons, flak cannons, point defense lasers and even small burst-fire railguns is essential. In addition, you can even use small missiles that explode into fragments for swarms and such.

[@szsdg2591]

Or use a anti capital particle beams to destroy container missiles. Though doing it on anything other than a beam battleship isn't exactly viable.

[@sethhuff8657]

​@szsdg2591 beams are the superior form of PD, it's an aurora with effectively infinite dps on bshrt

[@szsdg2591]

@@sethhuff8657 and shit traverse. Though that one is less of a problem with stacked mount gyros

[@bongwatercrocodile315]

@@steamedcream7671 It is a bit hard to get into with its odd pacing though. Tried to get my friend into it but he wasn't having it. Also learning the game can be a bit demoralising with pub stomping being ever present.

[@michimatsch5862]

The game looks so cool but I really don't wanna get repeatedly murdered by people who have an engineering degree. The game didn't look like it had too much pve/coop content.

[@MrHws5mp]

The British Sea Dart was originally designed as an area defence missile with little or no point defence capability against incoming anti-ship missiles. These limitations became a big deal in the 1982 Falklands War. After that, the system was quietly upgraded in many ways, making the Missouri Silkworm kill possible. It has to be pointed out though, that a Silkworm is a BIG, slow missile: much bigger than an Exocet and much slower than a Kh-31. The _first_ missile in the world specifically designed to shoot down anti-ship missiles was the British Seawolf, which debuted in the Falklands, but only on three ships and never got a chance to show that capability. Early versions had conventional launchers but later ones had vertical launch with a tandem, thrust-vectoring booster that gave them a 360 degree arc of fire. Seawolf is now being replaced by SeaCeptor, which is also vertically launched but has an active seeker, so the number of targets that can be engaged simultaneously isn't limited by the number of fire-control radars on the ship.

[@bravodelta3083]

'British Seawolf'. Ah, the 'ol 'Soggy-Doggy' missile. A great bit of kit :)

[@kacperkonieczny7333]

_reads Falklands War_ *Back In Control by Sabaton starts playing*

[@InsufficientGravitas]

Area defence systems are still intended to eliminate missiles, but they do it for a large area, rather than to defend a single ship or **point**. as for the effectiveness, the Sea Dart was designed prior to exocet and long before kh-31. A more modern example of an area defence missile would be the aster series of missiles in the sea Viper system that replaced Sea Dart. Wikipedia- Sea dart was developed to replace SeaSlug as "Sea Slug was useful against first-generation strike aircraft but had limited performance against faster aircraft or anti-ship missiles." it also notes that a gun system was also considered but rejected as they felt it "would ultimately be useless against future anti-ship missiles that would manoeuvre on the approach".

[@be-noble3393]

Mass Effect had a good balance as the main weapons were KEWs but the PDWs were DEWs. Regardless this video really demonstrates that every offense has a defense.

[@brokenursa9986]

Mass Effect even has different factions using different types of lasers. Alliance GARDIAN lasers use an infrared beam, while geth lasers are ultraviolet, trading range for greater energy transfer.

[@battlesheep2552]

​@@brokenursa9986plus using UV laser should be considered a war crime considering what it can do to anyone without PPE anywhere near it.

[@Fr0st1989]

@@battlesheep2552 i don't think geth have to worry too much about that

[@PositiveBlackSoul]

@@brokenursa9986 IIRC Salarians also prefer ultraviolet GARDIAN on their few war ships where everyone else uses infrared.

[@warellis]

​@@PositiveBlackSoulSalarians prefer ultra bleeding edge high performance over something cheaper. Hence why they too use ultraviolet lasers instead of infrared ones.

[@ala5530]

Most of the footage we see in The Expanse of missiles has them essentially in the initial boost phase (generating a base vector towards the target volume after launch) or in terminal acquisition*, wherein they have to cut any jinking and reserve any RCS in case they need to generate a radical delta-v in response to their target's evasion attempts. Yes, this makes them more predictable targets for point defence fire, but given the geometry and relative velocity at that stage in flight, it's better to have the ability to maneuvre to generate a hit than to overshoot and have to kill their own velocity and build up an overtake in the target again. Also, if their trajectory has stabilised on an intercept, and they get hit by a CIWS, there's still a chance their shrapnel cone will intersect the target and cause some damage, but if they are jinking around when hit, there's a greater chance the target will not be in the path of any one piece of shrapnel (since there's a lateral component to the missile's moment which will influence the expanding cloud of shrapnel that used to be a missile, and no guaranteed that the missile will be hit at a complementary portion of its own evasive maneuvres). Granted, this is speculation on my part, but I believe it justified (or at least justifiable). *Ok, we do also see missiles in a ballistic coast phase. It is, after all, how the OPA got its hands on those excellent strategic weapons. We don't see any on screen in a mid-flight jink phase though, you're right.

[@theshadows8026]

That and throwing a bunch of cheap missiles to drain PDCs early in the battle would be a strategy that works. Essentially you launch really cheap missiles first drain PDCs or at least reduce and then launch your costlier missiles.

[@stuart207]

And if the enemy uses their best missiles first and you miss? It's game over 😂

[@XerrolAvengerII]

the missiles used against the donnager had advanced tracking and jinking which was why it was able to be disabled by missiles, the defense officer even mentioned the missiles were more advanced than Simulations

[@vaniellys]

This morning during commute, I had the urge to listen to X-COM 2's Ready for battle theme. Wasn't expecting to hear it in a 10 minute video the same day.

[@WolfeSaber]

In the Expanse, there are shotgun PDCs, used by Belter ships at times.

[@CoffeeFiend1]

Aye I often have to remind casual fans that PDCs are exceptionally rare for Belter ships. Some of the big factions like Golden Bough have rudimentary shotgun PDCs, partly to mitigate their lack of targeting and tracking sophistication relative to the main powers but also as essentially mass-drivers as they often prey on defenseless ships. Things like the Tynans 2x Martian retrofit guns exist but they're super fucking rare. Honestly Belter ship combat is grim as hell because in 95% of cases when armed Belter ships go against each other they both have missiles and that's it and the missiles aren't really advanced enough to intercept the other ships missiles and getting hit by a single missile is basically game over.

[@bobmartin9918]

Sounds similar to the Sarissa from the space combat game Nebulous Fleet Command, which is essentially a big automatic coil shotgun that shoots bursts of tungsten shrapnel at incoming threats.

[@theshadows8026]

Sounds like a flak gun

[@CoffeeFiend1]

@@theshadows8026 Well the definitions for flak guns and mass drivers aren't completely concrete, I've never played Nebulous but sounds like he's describing a coilgun which is a form of magnetized linear accelerator which is what mass drivers are in most contexts. In The Expanse we don't really know how Belter shotgun PDCs operate, they're not true PDC's but are likely for all intents and purposes flak guns but whether they're exploding shells like traditional AA guns or frangible ad hoc canisters for physically launching crap forward with a propellant charge behind it we don't know.

[@INWMI]

seems that mars have the upperhand in weapontech@@CoffeeFiend1

[@StacheMan26]

Everyone knows Casaba howitzers are the best point defense weapons, because why wouldn't you want to ride into battle surrounded by a halo of close proximity nuclear detonations? Rhetorical question, of course you want to do that!

[@RorikH]

I see your casaba howitzers and raise you an Orion Drive? Can't nuke me if I nuke myself first!

[@MrGrumblier]

There is always the Havenite Triple Ripple.

[@jessecarozza6745]

@@MrGrumblier Yessssssssssssssssss.... deep lore. :D Damn you, Foraker! You and your lethal oopses!

[@MrGrumblier]

@@jessecarozza6745 Best line in the whole series, imo.

[@vkobevk]

because nuclear explosion going to blind your sensor, so your opponant launch 2 waves, the first it is to blast nuclear explosion from you, the second going to hit your ship

[@danielhaire6677]

One of my favorite examples of a ship using all three PDW types you mentioned was the SDF-1 Macross from the Macross franchise. 100 point defense gun turrets split between kinetic and energy based, plus 24 point defense missile turrets. This was in addition to over 500 Destroid type mecha which could be used in a mobile point defense/anti-ship role.

[@komo6103]

Any mention of Macross gets a thumbs up for me. That said, it is a franchise that really goes all in on both missiles and point defences, especially as the main guns of the fighters are often used to shoot down missiles, justifying firing a dozen missiles at single targets, only for better pilots to show off their skills by not only shooting down all those missiles, but to get a gun kill right after. Sure, manually designating missile targets for shootdown isn't realistic, even with the advanced eye tracking they use, but it sure as hell looks cool.

[@BradDavis_vr]

I honestly can't believe that the Macross/Robotech point defense system didn't rate any mention in this video. It seems quite distinct from any of the other systems that were covered.

[@komo6103]

@@BradDavis_vrWhile disappointing, Valkyries are basically just CIWS on offensive platforms.

[@danielhaire6677]

@Miss_Chevious That was a game changer that became standard on UN Spacy ships afterward. Basically, rolling a buckler in front of a shot. I still considered it a more benign defensive system than traditional point defense. Good point, though. In fact, I think Robotech/Macross are the only franchises that ever had a system like that.

[@komo6103]

@Miss_Chevious Plus and Frontier prominently showed off the evolution of that. Capital ships went with the 360 barriers that were faulty in the original series, and Valkyries got it as a fixed shield on the left arm like a buckler, in addition to be used as an offensive weapon on the hands. But those are shields, not point defence which are projectiles that intercept enemy weapons at a distance.

[@playwars3037]

I usually write my point defence in four layers : ECM, counter missiles, direct fire point defence and terminal interception. ECM is the general electronic warfare side, misleading missiles, sending them after decoys, with the missiles doing the same on their end, trying to create ghosts or dodge around, ect. Counter missiles are for midcourse interception, usually by using nukes to create a cloud of plasma, either as flak (preventing the need for a direct kinetic hit to take out a missile, which are hard to produce thanks to ECM), or as an additive to electronic warfare, creating a flash of energy and a wall of cooling plasma that confuses sensors, which ships can work around far more easily than the limited sensors onboard missiles. Direct fire point defence is usually close in, although some variants are longer ranged, and finally most of the missiles in my novels have a 'terminal attack phase', where they burn out their sensors trying to punch through the cloud of ECM and find where the ship is exactly to hit it (usually with bomb pumped laser warheads), and become giant beacons of light, and all of their own ECM is stripped in the process. The terminal phase sometimes has its own dedicated point defence systems, made for very short range and with more primitive sensor systems, but most of the time the normal point defence weapons are simply retasked in a desperate bid to take out the last of the enemy salvo before they hit.

[@TheTrueAdept]

ECM depends if you're using quantum radar (which uses _quantum entanglement_ of all things) sets or not. If you are, then _any_ ECM that isn't 'lol, you can't use the microwave and radio bands entirely' is going to be ignored.

[@admiralcasperr]

Phased array laser weapons will be difficult, since you're wasting a lot of energy on the unfocused leftovers from the phasing. Only a small % of the energy is contained in the head, which is also expanding rather quickly. A better use for that tech would be to have it provide miniscule adjustments to optimise the beam within the laser's already existing divergence bounds.

[@klaxxon__]

Also the individual elements need to be extremely small in case of light - I believe distance between the elements of a phased array need to be less than or equal to the wavelength of the wave. That is tenths of a meter for radar, easy enough. For visible light, it is like hundreds of nanometers - not so much.

[@hugmynutus]

@@klaxxon__quarter wavelength, not half. You also need the input switching current (assuming the simplest discrete case) be 3x the wave frequency you're producing to avoid aliasing. So making the LED grid isn't "impossible" with modern semiconductors but controlling it 1.2-2.1THz will be problematic.

[@BogeyTheBear]

Yep, a phased array radar works because you're casting energy in the hopes of getting an echo-- a directed energy weapon is trying to get as much energy into the target as possible, and a phased array precludes that.

[@morrischen5777]

Isn’t a phased array incompatible with the concept of laser? Beamforming requires multi-directional phase difference, but the laser is highly directional and phase-unified, which means it is not likely or efficient for lasers to interfere with each other and form a steering beam.

[@komo6103]

@@morrischen5777It wouldn't be a laser, per say, but it would be a directed energy weapon. But as stated before, the energy requirements would be magnitudes higher than a conventional weaponized laser, being that you'd be generating photos waves just to cancel out other photon waves. And that's in addition to the wavelength problem as well, as mentioned. Perhaps if there's a wavelength that is easily absorbed by common projectile materials that isn't so small, or that megawatt nanometer antennae become feasible such a design becomes possible, but the former can be countered just by changing the material the projectile is made from, and the latter suggests that there are far better ways to direct your creative energies.

[@MsZeeZed]

Jinking a missile at a fraction of the speed of light comes with its own mathematical issues, not least in accurately detecting the incoming interceptor projectile closing at approaching double that fraction, just as the real target advances or even retreats. In The Expanse, ships and missiles use similar engine types and move in similar speed ranges to catch ships, they can just accelerate or turn faster, so referring to them as torpedoes is more appropriate as they can be outrun if detected early enough, like early torpedo types. Modern anti-ship missiles move at ten times the speed of ships and the difference doesn’t seem to be that big in The Expanse.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I’d often wondered what separated a torpedo from a missile in space, where you can’t just say torpedoes are underwater and missiles are in the air. Love the order of magnitude faster than a ship distinction. Indeed even the UN missiles can’t keep up with the Razorback so it’s not even quite matching ship speed in The Expanse.

[@MsZeeZed]

@@kaitlyn__L After Earth’s IPBMs are captured on Tyco station, they are analysed and clearly use the same *fusion Epstein drives* (of a different model) as the Roci. I think the terms torpedo and missile are in fact interchangeable in The Expanse space combat. Variations in use may come down to torpedos being launched from ships and missiles from planets, or that on Mars the MCRN is a strong naval tradition (its troops are Marines), but Earth’s UN still thinks of being a Superpower with missiles or just the range of the combat.

[@Justowner]

The engines on ships are probably down rated by a LOT so a missile with the same engine type as ship is probably still capable of 10x speed. Remember, in space you aren't going off of velocity, but acceleration and a ship cant accelerate too fast because it has squishies in it. The initial relative velocities also matter a ton, so your capability to intercept is basically entirely on the delta V. I would argue that jinking is a stupid thing for a missile to do, any delta V expended to jink is Delta V not used to intercept. Infact, you probably have to spend more fuel to course correct for every jink so that you can still hit your target. Its probably much wiser to go all in on fastest possible intercept and not bother trying to dodge

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@MsZeeZed yeah, Epstein brand but a lot smaller. (Presumably there’s more than one company making them too, unless patents last over 100 years in that world.) Of course fusion fuel is pretty small so that might not impact acceleration too much, but when they send missiles across half the solar system as drones there’s got to be some kind of consideration to conserving enough fuel to hit a target. (We don’t see Epstein drives coast very often but I think the commercial ships, and missiles in that situation, must do.) I definitely think size is part of it as well, something too big to be carried on a ship that must be launched planet-side/from a giant orbital facility is definitely more on the missile side than torpedo side regardless of speed. (Such as those Martian missiles which they tried to preemptively take out, and one still hit Earth.) But still they do mostly just call everything missiles, which I suppose is fine!

[@khandimahn9687]

One thing to keep in mind about lasers - they are not instant kill weapons where a quick glance destroys the target. They melt through the target. To take out a missile requires hitting the exact same spot long enough to cut into it. This means a simple defense would be to just rotate. This is a real potential issue today, and could easily be a problem in a sci-fi setting... especially if the missile has anti-laser coating. So a proper laser defense would need a beam powerful enough to burn into the missile quickly.

[@nicholaslee5473]

That's due to the power level of current lasers being weak due to technological limitations. If you put aside technology, and focus on physics only, a sufficiently powerful laser can instantly destroy a target, because we know if a material is heated up too quickly it will not melt, but sublime (turn into gas phase) violently instead.

[@stevenborchert6551]

I mean, you said it yourself, it would need to be a powerful beam, but having that means they would be amazing point defence weapons. Otherwise yes, if its too weak then there's really not much point in even having them.

[@Br3ttM]

Short pulses instead of sustained beams could counter that without needing an extremely high (sustained) capacity.

[@stevenborchert6551]

@@Br3ttM True, but then engagement time goes up for each missile, and if there is a half way decent computer in the missile, gives it more time to rotate the missile to an unaffected side. As with everything there is an upside and a downside to things. Unless we have it as the other guy said, which it is powerful enough to sublimate it instantly, destroying the missile, which isn't something that will come about any time soon I reckon, and if it does, then there is no need for the sustained beam anyway, and it would be pulses.

[@spindash64]

What if you could just send a radio signal to the missile to turn it around?

[@DanBen07]

In the show Andromeda the ship had Point Defense Lasers. I remember a few times characters would say switch to beam fire but the ship said it couldn't do that. It just fired pulses. It often use them as their first line of defense against missiles. 5:27 that reminds me of the last episode of Deep Space Nine. The Cardassian ship Phaser beam was coming out in like a sweeping action. When previously it was just a single Beam on target.

[@warellis]

Andromeda was a show with a great technical bible and worldbuilding. Space warfare in that setting was derived from very modern ideas on ship combat as opposed to 18th century in space. The main offensive weapons were high speee long range missiles while ship defenses relied on defensive missiles, point defense lasers and antiproton cannons (that could also be used against ships at knife fighting ranges of 4 light seconds), ECM, reactive armor, battle blades, and cold plasma shielding to mitigate damage and penetration. Because offensive weapons were so powerful, ships couldn't tank their own weapons so they had to rely on avoiding being hit or mitigating penetration via deliberate over penetration into sections of the hull with no atmosphere in them. Honestly, Mass Effect & Andromeda both complement each other in general technology and space magic I found, compared to say Star Wars (as an example). I just really love that New Space Opera framework for technology and worldbuilding both settings have.

[@akizeta]

Missiles don't dodge in _The Expanse_ for two reasons. The exegetic reason is that it will make the action harder to follow. The diegetic reason is that it's hard enough to get an ABM and a ballistic missile to occupy the same space at the same time when the velocity difference is only around 10-15 km/s; when you've got a missile and a spaceship closing at a velocity of hundreds or thousands of km/s, the firing solution is that much more complicated without throwing in both missile and target jinking about randomly. To take a real-life example, some versions of the Russian _Kinzhal_ missile are supposed to have a dodging mode in their terminal phase, but it makes the missile less accurate, and accuracy matters when you're trying to take out a (non-dodging) _Patriot_ battery, for example. Accuracy counts even more when the target isn't stationary on the Earth's surface.

[@tomk3732]

In terminal phase Kinzhal is no longer hypersonic - it is around Mach 3. I made the Expanse into a joke with their PDC at incoming speed of 200 km/s. You just make it even harder with 10x my estimated speed. Yes, if a missile can damage a ship, surely ABM can damage another missile - which is a small ship. This is the only thing we can come up in Expanse that makes sense. However, we do not know how these missiles would be armed - future technology.

[@akizeta]

@@tomk3732 An ABM can damage another missile - if it can hit it. Or if it can get close and detonate its nuclear warhead at just the right moment. Easier said than done.

[@tomk3732]

@@akizeta hitting it at these speeds near impossible. Nukes don't work to well in space as there is no gas to expand. Only radiation. Enemy missile would care only about heat, not so much about say x ray part of the spectrum. Plus the heating would be only for like 0.0001 of a second. So nukes are not super effective. Unless maybe they are huge. Maybe anti matter warheads that have say energy of 100 Mt.

[@Techno_Idioto]

The Kinzhal also FUCKING SUCKS.

[@Littledog0808]

Point defense can also good at shooting down incoming bombers that get past your main guns-something that Star Wars Sequels pointed out with how that huge First Order bombardment star destroyer had extremely few turrets and once they were taken out-it was completely reliant on escort

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

Once you have a handle on the concept, you can see how every setting handles it. I love the technological arms race in the Honor Harrington books. But also the reliance on Counter missiles and Point defense laser clusters as the last line of defense.

[@Practitioner_of_Diogenes]

Literally the only plus for the Last Jedi was showcasing how important point defense can actually be in space combat.

[@erikholgersson9235]

Isn't bombers in space just not realistic? Firing large missiles from longer ranges will be better in all cases. Like a missile is smaller, unmanned and can also get past your main defence. And unlike a bomber being shot down, a single missile loss will not cause all other munitions to go to waste. I guess that it would be cheaper to send in a reusable bomber that shoots out cheaper payloads than outfitting missiles. But then you would have to make sure that the bombers actually survive.

[@merafirewing6591]

​@@erikholgersson9235 honestly if Light Bombers, Medium Bombers and Heavy Bombers were to be spacecraft, it would essentially be a Missile truck in space. Lots of missiles in the bomb bay to deploy and then immediately leave.

[@randomguy-tg7ok]

Star Wars TLJ: Because when your Point Defence cannons are Quad Turbolasers, you're probably upscaling the thing wrong.

[@CanyonF]

Lasers also make a lot of heat dont they? You could overwhelm the enemy's radiators by stressing their point defense, that would be cool

[@tael3081]

Don't need pdl for that, pdc produce a fair bit of heat too. Also, Sojourn.

[@CanyonF]

@@tael3081 Guns produce heat but chemically propelled ammo pumps a lot of it out the barrel, lasers are gonna retain everything but the actual light. what is sojourn

[@joewelch4933]

@@CanyonF Lasers also tend to produce a lot more heat in the first place. Then again, future tech so maybe they will be a hell of a lot more efficient. But yeah most the heat the gun produces will go out with the shell and propellant.

[@tael3081]

@@CanyonF I am aware that the projectile, propellant gasses, and shell casings all help expel heat from a gun that the radiators wont need to deal with (assuming you expel the casings instead of storing them), but it still doesn't take all that long to get automatic weapons glowing hot with sustained fire. The Sojourn audio drama was created by Spacedock, it has its own KZbin channel, sustained pdc fire overwhelming a ship's radiators is a thing that happens.

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@joewelch4933 current lasers are less than 50% efficient, though DARPA has been investing in 45% efficient lasers for a while now. A laser's highest (scientifically proven) efficiency rate is 65%. So a laser with 65% efficiency will only need 35% of that input to be heat that needs to be radiated away. In addition, you'll have 'fun' with UV-C and Xaser pulse lasers that have damage profiles similar to hypervelocity kinetic projectiles.

[@scifiguy810]

Another amazing video -- thanks for the great sci-fi and world-building content!

[@ShaunRF]

Slightly disappointed that the interceptors in Babylon 5 weren't mentioned. Unless I missed it. Who can forget the iconic phrase "Reset forward interceptors for long range dispersion fire!"

[@JeffreyTappan-bb8rr]

Good point

[@Coolman13355]

Or "Forward interceptors on the Clarkstown are down. We can punch through the hull."

[@ShaunRF]

@@Coolman13355 Funny, I JUST watched that scene earlier today lol.

[@TheFirstObserver]

Love the XCom music. Really sells that future point defense feel. 😎

[@adolhein]

Never thought I'd be this early for a Spacedock upload.

[@Dan-d5o]

It is possible to steer a laser beam with liquid crystal phase shifters. Probably wouldn't work at high power but good for precision tracking. (This is from an unclassified paper presented in 1998.)

[@battlesheep2552]

Ah yeah I think I saw one of those in action. Basically a lens that you can change the "shape" of electronically so you can change how it bends light.

[@BogeyTheBear]

Not as efficient. Phasing requires interference, and interference is energy that you have but cannot put into the target

[@battlesheep2552]

@@BogeyTheBear it's not the same concept as phasing

[@Talon1124]

Depending on the setting, lasers may take time to cause their damage via heating instead of boring through. I'm thinking of a particle beam style of PDS, kinda similar setup to the Somtaaw multibeam frigate. Central accelerator, with multiple apertures to fire beams out of. Like multiple vector ports. I do like the concept of the multiphase laser array, reminds me of phaser strips in star trek.

[@hoojiwana]

You can use a laser the same say as that Somtaaw frigate, have a central beam generator that routes to multiple turrets it alternates between. And yes it took alot of restraint for me to not point out that you *could* call a phased array laser a phaser lol. - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@mluby7828]

Children of a Dead Earth gets this right-rolling your ship disperses the laser heat harmlessly across your hull. Once you're close enough that the laser can maintain focus on one point on your hull, you're "in range" of that laser.

[@joewelch4933]

@@mluby7828 Well the other feature of lasers is you can cook the other ship to death even if you cant actually pen it with lasers. Just hope your heat sinks are better than theirs.....

[@dogloversrule8476]

3:05 the Expanse torpedoes probably couldn’t be moved around because their inertia is so great that the added cost & size wouldn’t be worth it

[@Sky_Guy]

Yeah, same with the point about shrapnel. Acceleration plays such a huge roll in fights, so as soon as missiles are intercepted we see the explosion and fragmentation zip past the ships. Particularly in the fight he was showing, the Roci chasing the Zmeya, the cheap belter missiles had to constantly thrust forward to even have a chance of hitting the Roci while also constantly thrusting sideways to spread out, making them easy targets as they had to "fall" onto the Roci rather than intercept it.

[@Hydralysk445]

Are you sure? Cause I'd need to look it up but I think the books specifically mention their missiles being able to dodge. Also, when the Donnager is attacked in the show, one of the weapons tech says "their torps guidance systems are really good, better than anything we ever simmed against" which implies to me that they are better at dodging the Donnager's point defenses. I mean, why would he mention the guidance systems specifically if all they're doing is following a straight trajectory to the target?

[@dogloversrule8476]

@@Sky_Guy in the books, the missiles used Epstein engines for propulsion, at least the inner planets in the books did this.

[@dogloversrule8476]

@@Hydralysk445 I was commenting on what was said the video at the attached time stamp

[@sircrapalot9954]

@@dogloversrule8476They do in the show, too. The episode that introduces Epstein’s backstory has a brief scene where Drummer checks status on the missiles Tycho seized from the Eros attack, and there’s an Epstein logo on their info page. Also, any time there’s a blue thrust plume on a missile it’s implied that it has an Epstein drive. “Conventional” fusion thrusters, like on most Belter weapons, burn yellow.

[@ilejovcevski79]

Self evading missiles usually sound like a good idea, though one thing should always be taken into account. Fuel. Even in space, where once up to speed there's no need for a sustainer engine, changing directions requires force, and thus mass. So any extra fuel carried for such mass, will mean a heavier missile, a larger missile, or missile with less space available for a guidance electronics or explosive yield.

[@Blutwind]

also conservation of momentum is a problem as a rocket flying in one direction can at most wobble on its normal course and would need to basical come at a hard stop on its current axis if it wanted to change purley to another providing the need to either do some very interesting spinning or break engines

[@ilejovcevski79]

@@Blutwind aye, true that

[@scottlescard6154]

In The Expanse the missiles do have avoidance capabilities. It's even mentioned season 1 EP 4 CQB, "Their tor's guidance systems are really good better than anything that we've ever sys against." In that battle we see some of the missile make it through to the Donanger because of this. In all combat scenes we see this, that's why so mean PDC rounds have to be fired to take out one missile.

[@bismarkeugen6881]

Low RoF, Higher caliber point defense has the advantage of lower heat build up that a very high RoF system. Gatlings and similar gun systems heat up the barrel very quickly and while something like the 76mm will generate heat, it will take considerably longer to heat up to the same degree, along with the larger surface area of the larger barrel contributing to dissipating heat better. Also depending on how good incoming missiles are at dodging, a high calibre air(space)-burst weapon may be better to try and catch a missile in it's larger AoE plus in CQB a penetrating round from a gun like that could do major damage if it was set to go off inside the target.

[@kuroshine]

The comparison between Phaser arrays and Phased Array Radars blew my mind and is so really cool.

[@kimnice]

2:44 The Expanse episode these clips are from had few major issues: They needed to hit Martian stealth missile platforms simultaneously so that Martians don't get a chance to strike back. Due to technical issue one of the railguns fires too late and that one platform manages to fire single "Planet buster". They didn't aknowledge communication delay: That last shot was delayed less than ten seconds and these platforms were over 20 million kilometers from each other. It would have taken over a minute for that last platform to receive information of what happened to other platforms. Second issue is that UN used planetary railguns for the attack: These launches would be easily detectable and Martians would have had plenty of time to react and move those platforms slightly just in case.

[@BernddasBrotB7]

For the former case, maybe there was a sort of dead man's switch quantum entanglement system aboard which let the platform know the others had been blown up in a faster than light timeframe? I know absolutely nothing about the Expanse beyond 'hard sci-fi' so I don't know if that tech exists in that setting, but that sort of computing ought to be in reach within the sort of timeframe they're working with.

[@taiko1237]

The delayed railgun shot was fired ~30 seconds after the first railgun shot in the TV episode, not 10 seconds. Still not quite long enough for radio communications. My theory is that the platform saw the other shots being fired and because of that was able to launch a missile. They do actually show the first platform to be hit firing its thrusters just before the railgun shot hits, so this seems likely to me.

[@kimnice]

@@BernddasBrotB7 The Expanse represented HARD scifi when ever it wasn't about the alien "proto molecyle". They didn't have any FTL system. Information traveled at the speed of light at best. This means that one minute after other platforms were destroyed..that last one was still receiving "Everythings fine"-signal from them. For example at the end of 5th season they received information about Inaros attacking ring gate. Good guys are at the Moon. They make clear that this attack actually happened several hours ago, but they're just no receiving information about it. e

[@kimnice]

@@taiko1237 It's a mess.. I mean even with just passive sensors those platforms should have seen those shots coming early..and should have chganged positions. Problem solved. It doesn't make sense that platforms attempt to move at the last second. I mean none of the platforms should have been hitten. They should have moved and thus gone hidden again as was supposed in the episode. No need to fire back. Current railguns can fire object at the speed of 4km/s. In Expanse they are used as a medium range weapons. Too clumsy for short range and too easy to dodge at long range. These were Earth orbital cannons. At 4km/s it would take almost TWO MONTHS for those railgun rounds to reach these platforms..and these platforms would have received information of the launch in little over 1 minute

[@taiko1237]

​@@kimnice The best (ship-mounted, keep in mind) railguns in the Expanse books which aren't Laconian can do ~25km/s in the books, while Laconian ones can do somewhat more. Stationary/orbital cannons can probably do better than that because power restrictions are less of an issue (for example the Laconian weapons that defend the Ring Station are apparently capable of ~100km/s iirc). In the TV series, railgun velocities are never specified as far as I know. Also, in the TV show, is it ever stated how far out the platforms are? I've only watched clips of the TV show, but I have watched the relevant clip and they never say anything like that. I would have thought they'd be as close as would be possible without being detected easily, so as to reduce the time UNN defenses had to intercept the missiles. The clip I watched also shows the missile the platform launched burning towards Earth. While it didn't show the whole flight, it didn't seem like it took more than a few minutes to reach Earth (which wouldn't have been the case if the platforms were 20 million km out, for all the reasons you've stated).

[@UPLYNXED]

With the shrapnel of destroyed missiles taken into account, the angular shapes of the Rocinante make even more sense. It's described as a scalpel shape and if that's the side facing the enemy, most shrapnel would likely bounce off of plating. The bigger ships likely solve the issue by just layering more armor, like with the protomolecule armor later on in the show. Can't exactly do that with a gunship that's supposed to be as mobile and agile as the Roci, so the design's actually brilliant.

[@alecbaldwin7407]

The US Army already has laser point defense, deployed and tested. Check out task and purpose! They did a video on it about a month or so ago!

[@АлексейЛогинов-ф6б]

Laser point-defense is rather useless in atmo(same for full scale laser weaponry). It has even shorter range than kinetics(thermal bloom), greatly influenced by weather conditions(which is horrible trait for systems that should work reliably) and has far far higher cost. We will need at least 100+ years more to develop enough for lasers get even close to current chemical propulsion weaponry.

[@bowenmadden6122]

I doubt it'll take centuries...

[@TlalocTemporal]

​@@АлексейЛогинов-ф6б-- 100+ years at the current rate maybe. A big hot war or major development in nuclear energy would fast track that tech significantly. Heck, advanced laser tech might be part of making fusion economically viable anyway!

[@argokarrus2731]

@@АлексейЛогинов-ф6б I think you mean 10 years. Laser PD is in atmosphere using current-gen current-day tech able to handedly outperform Phalanx at healthy power requirements. Moreover, the cost per system and cost per shootdown is actually significantly lower than even a mythical one-shot-shootdown from a very cheap 20mm still costs 22 dollars. A laser shootdown is 3 dollars. We need maybe a decade to roll out lasers for SHORAD and on Aircraft in place of their useless 20mms (at least in air combat), and likely even less for Naval ships, which could spare the power output, or on new-gen warships. Lasers also do not suffer from smoke, thermal bloom, nor weather with current-gen tech (or not even close to as much as many would think), and especially not if we invent pulsed lasers on a smaller scale, given we already have both pulsed lasers at a laboratory scale and very high power CW lasers.

[@АлексейЛогинов-ф6б]

@@argokarrus2731 You are only considering cost of projectiles themselfs. Lasers have far more consumabls that rise cost of using it considerably(mirrors, lenses, crystals,rare gases depending on type of laser). If you account for that you will find that currently each laser shot costs even more than full scale point-defense missile.Not to mention that thermal bloom problem is pretty much unsolvable in any near future(and that makes using laser instead of current systems pretty much pointless). Same for weather influence(whats the point in defense system that doesnt work half of the time).

[@elijahgrimm8052]

One concept I love about space-based point defense is just have a blunderbuss that fires a cloud of sand at incoming projectiles. If they are moving fast enough, they get shredded to pieces and maybe get some of the velocity knocked off as well as being pushed off course.

[@JeffreyTappan-bb8rr]

Sandcasters from the Traveller RPG game.

[@deven6518]

If a PDC shoots a missile in space the fragments will scatter. They will not stop but there will be an ever-increasing cone from the point of impact. It will be temporarily slowed by the projectile as well and unless it explodes (unlikely in space), it's not going to catch up.

[@novakhin1642]

i was very impressed by the jacksonpriormerlin point defense system shown in this video. thanks a lot

[@alphaone5406]

I always liked the Anti Fighter beam cannons from Freespace 2

[@markpaxton144]

If you have read about the point defence weapons in the Honorverse Novels, there is some amazing technology involved in these books, including the use of the Katana light attack craft in the missile defence role

[@dragonturtle2703]

A potential video topic is "tactical jumps" and other uses of the FTL system besides go from one star to another. Also the improvisations of technology able to generate micro black holes/artificial event horizons (weapons, power generation, propulsion, etc).

[@kaylinhendrich4673]

That’s the thing I liked about the point defense weapons in Freespace 2. Anti fighter/ordinance weapons were basically high power lasers that primarily targets fighter craft and torpedoes. They were rough to deal with in the bomber and interceptor focused levels

[@Cas-Se78.97]

I think The Expanse gets away with their predictable missile paths because the missiles don't have as high of a relative acceleration compared to the ships and are thus moving relatively slowly (e.g. when the unarmed Razorback is able to evade UN missiles while it remains at long range). Any kind of larger evasive maneuver at those speeds would likely seriously degrade the accuracy of a hit.

[@weaselwolf]

I remember a sci-fi book series where missiles/anti-missile missiles had gotten to the stage where ship to ship combat essentially boiled down to letting swarms of wasp-like combat drones that where essentially computer guided missiles with very efficient RCS. They ranged from suicidal KKVs to explosive to actually mounting guns, lasers or submunition launchers and your swarrms basically dueled each other with insanely high-g split second maneuvers until some could break though and make a run of the enemy ships, trying to dance though their close range defense grids. If two manned ships actually got close enough to start trading shots it was with microwave lasers and such and didn't generally do a ton of damage because of various countermeasures. It was all about whose drone missiles could get though. It was kind of interesting because it allowed for the description of extremely frenetic battles... From the drone's POV, but it was so automated the humans didn't have much to do

[@ventusprime]

one word NEBULUS FLEET COMMAND

[@ventusprime]

2:35 you erned your like

[@uss_04]

Love this series that you’re putting out. Point defense in space combat is something glorious to watch

[@isned2000]

ABMs are not necessary kinetic kill vehicles, some have warheads. For example the experimental Sprint missile from the 70s, which was to act as the final layer of missile defense and accelerated at 100g! had a kiloton yield neutron bomb warhead designed to cause incoming warheads to partially detonate. Earlier ABMs used even larger warheads, some in the megaton range.

[@koiyujo1543]

YES FINALLY!!!!!!!! YES YES YES! WELL BLOODY DONE!

[@peridoodle2644]

One thing you got wrong, there is ONE laser system in operational service for point defense. The HELIOS system, which is currently in service on the USS Preble, DDG 88

[@theshadows8026]

Also The Iron Beam In Isreal. Only a few have been deployed but they are in service in the current conflict.

[@b1ngnx33]

THANK YOU!

[@kevinkorenke3569]

It really hurts that clips from Yamato 2199 were not used. Lots of great examples of PDS isage there.

[@Chobittsu]

Hooji has a bias against SBY ;P

[@CantankerousDave]

And that time they flipped the ship around and used the wave motion gun as a thruster…

[@INWMI]

The expanse has the best shots of relistical combat. that scene of that ship deploying its misiles and arming PDC's while traveling is awesome

[@floppiwaffle4200]

The war thunder thing was funny 😂

[@jacara1981]

Theres also Offensive and Defensive ECM (Electronic Countermeasures). There are various forms but the most common try to scramble a incoming missiles/drones lockon, This can be direct assault on the camera and electronic systems or defensive electronic camouflage.

[@DrakeAurum]

Honourable mention for the portal device used by the Shrike in Picard season 3. Setting an attacker's torpedoes on a collision course with their own ship is a pretty neat trick.

[@jessecarozza6745]

Marko Ramius did it first. :P

[@benhobson3084]

Which leads me to believe that torpedos in the Star Trek universe must posses both active and passive scanning countermeasures. Otherwise just use you transporter array to redirect it. Maybe this is why such things are showing being manhandled into the launchers?

[@ShaunRF]

2:39 Missiles in the Expanse don’t dodge? I think someone might need to rewatch episode 4 of season 1, titled CQB. The torpedoes from the strealth ships were said to be dodging the PDCs of the Donnager. That is why some of them were able to break through and score hits on the Donny. It wasn’t shown in the VFX though, just through dialogue.

[@unknowngamer37415]

You should do a video on decoys because depending on the system all you need is a warm mirror to produce a near perfect decoy space.

[@ForestRaptor]

Or a can of coffee :p

[@williammeek4078]

I don’t think anyone would bother with decoys in space because with no air, there is no max speed so even a kinetic missile would be devastating. At least that is how I would develop my missiles, a mix of high explosive and kinetic kill. Kinetic kill would be safer for the ship to store as well.

[@TheAchilles26]

​@@williammeek4078 pretty much any missile warhead that doesn't have a standoff range (which in space is pretty much nuke pumped laser warheads like the Honorverse or a shaped charge to launch a single use "shotgun blast" should just be kinetic warheads anyway. Mostly because of cost effectiveness especially when one of best ways to get past point defense is to overwhelm it with sheer numbers

[@unknowngamer37415]

@@williammeek4078 ships can't doge lasers and stopping missiles ( depending on setting) is costly but if a large number of the missiles were diverted It could make stopping the remaining ones easier. ( Probably not that practical but I thought it would be an interesting sci-fi idea)

[@williammeek4078]

@@unknowngamer37415 remember, there is no stealth in space so engagement will be happening at tens of light seconds. That is enough time for evasive maneuver to “doge lasers” that are incoming as long as you have the delta V to expend. Also, forcing missiles to expend their limited delta V to avoid anti-missile ordinance would be a good strategy as well. That could even be coordinated to cause the missiles to divert away from the direction the shop is maneuvering to avoid potential incoming laser fire. Also, I would imagine larger ships would have better anti laser coatings, chafe, and fogs so missiles would be the bigger threats.

[@Valkyrie9000]

I love that the Roci is basically 50% PDC by volume. I swear they added more in the later seasons.

[@BoredomItself]

It's kind of a shame you didn't get to one use of lasers, and other directed energy options, in not heavily damaging an incoming missile, but overwhelming that missile's sensors. If an incoming missile can't see you, it'll be possible to dodge it, and prevent it from dodging other defenses.

[@joewelch4933]

The hard part of doing that though is it is possible for the missile to follow your own beam back to you. Thats essentially what missiles built to take out antiair stations do, they follow the enemy's own radar back to them.

[@BoredomItself]

@@joewelch4933 There are a range of options though, from just overwhelming the sensors, to actually damaging the sensors. All of which are potentially a lot easier than boring a hole into the missile. Besides the part where your laser does not have to come directly from your ship, and could be coming from, or redirected to the missile by a drone. The main downside of this sort of defense would be that you need to have an understanding of the sensors your enemy is using in their missiles, and how to properly interfere with them. Besides them also being able to learn how your defenses work and alter their sensors to be resilient to your methods. It would shift some of the importance from the battlefield, to spying and secrecy.

[@Br3ttM]

That might be counted as countermeasures, not point defense, so be discussed in a different video.

[@calluxdoaron1903]

Spacedock didn't really mentioned that lasers don't instantly bore into materials and target can simply switch it's surface by maneuvering on it's axis. This leads to thermal energy requiring to work it's way in once again and again, until target's thermal resistance is overwhelmed, which might consist of powerful radiators. And yeah, lasers do generate heat themselves, which requires robust heat radiation tech for ship itself.

[@DeadBoy665]

Damn fine examples of point defense and damn good analogy.

[@Rottooth]

They're great against Space Ameba in Stellaris.

[@NexAngelus405]

btw, there's a form of reactive armor developed in the UK called Electromagnetic Reactive Armor and it basically uses high voltage electricity to vaporize incoming projectiles as well as deflect pressure blasts and debris from explosive projectiles. There a video on youtube demonstrating a working prototype mounted on an APC where they set off an RPG mounted on a tripod right next to the vehicle. The vehicle is almost completely intact afterwards, with only a scorchmark on the armor where the RPG was touching it. However, it requires a ton of energy to work and the vehicle had to be hooked up to an external power source, with a visible electrical cable trailing after it.

[@Darkthal]

I was wondering if particle beams can also, be used as point defense systems in space battles? Great video on the subject.

[@Keemperor40K]

any type of weapon can be used as point defense, but each requires its own approach. Particle beams, are beams just like laser, firing particles instead of directed laser light, so it has a kinetic and energetic component. In practice its just a variation of point-defense laser with a more technologically advanced solution that has exactly the same terminal intent.

[@kieranhosty]

I'm so glad you covered phased array lasers along with everything else, been very curious about how feasible they are given current abilities of industrial fabrication. Mostly also because they're the top tier tech in Terra Invicta and a panel for a turret is really cool

[@Paveway-chan]

A lot of good points made. I wonder how relevant point defence would be in space though, since you can see missiles coming from absolute miles away (that's an understatement) intercepting them will in theory be super easy, so one would think that mass accelerator guns or energy weapons would dominate anyway. Cool idea about phased-array lasers though, one could easily imagine that's how Star Trek's phaser banks work! The problem I might imagine is in focus strength, that the beam from such a system might become diluted. Radar and laser might both utilize electromagnetic energy, i.e. photons, but I don't think radar and laser emits them the same way, that would make radar tech work for lasers and vice versa.

[@hanzzel6086]

It depends. DEW and especially KEW have effective range restrictions. Combined with ECW and LIDAR/RADAR absorbent coatings/materials, decoys/flares, maneuvering, and internal heatsinks, combat could take place at fairly short ranges in order to actually have a good chance of hitting your target. Which could leave space for missiles capable of independent tracking and targeting to be cold launched and act as mines/long range first/stealth strike munitions.

[@AdmiralStoicRum]

So when it comes to combat in space, combat starts when each ship detects each other so that could be hours apart, like you don't know when you come into system from 11 light minutes away from another ship that that ship is still in that location, if it is you have to have enough sensor data to extrapolate where it's going to be and that sort of thing, so one thing you can do is at a distance fire off your missiles let them approach and time your mazer fire in with the missiles so that the mazers actually intercept a bit before the missiles are close enough to take out their own point defense system before the point defense can target the missiles. Granted it'll take 11 minutes for those mazers to get from where you fired if you get my meaning

[@TheAchilles26]

Missiles can pursue a target through evasive maneuvers, which is a relevant tactical advantage at shorter ranges. And a sufficient swarm of missiles can still overwhelm active defenses even if they saw every shot coming.

[@hanzzel6086]

@@TheAchilles26 Depends on what the defences are. It would be nearly impossible to get through a missile defense grid using Casaba Howitzer armed missiles in conjunction with a bunch of Phalanx equivalents. You would have to launch missile waves large enough to warrant a Casaba, and you would have to launch enough of those waves to deplete their supply of Casabas, while having enough leftover to overwhelm the conventional PD *and* deal enough damage to kill the target vessel.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@hanzzel6086 even assuming the missiles in question have no standoff range, you're overestimating the efficiency of those point defenses significantly. And "enough missiles getting through to destroy the ship" is often as few as "one."

[@GModBMXer]

This is what I loved about Elite Dangerous. Having a suite of point defense options. Feels gooood

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

A phased array defence laser is an interesting idea. You'd need to delay the beams by some fraction of the period of the waveform. A back of the envelope calculation tells me 650nm light has a freqeuency of 4.61 x 10^14 Hz. Which implies a period of 2.1691974 × 10^-15 m. That's 2.161 femtoseconds. I've no idea if making variable delays that short with high power beams is technologically feasible.

[@RorikH]

Where did you get that envelope? Can I have one?

[@TlalocTemporal]

Femtosecond lasers have been in use since the 70s, and are commonly used today for eye surgery. Even better, this year's physics Nobel prize was for attosecond lasers, with are down to about a dozen attoseconds between pulses. It wouldn't be as simple as the direct switching in radar, but by the time we figure out lasers powerful enough to require non-refractive steering, phased steering should be possible is pretty short wavelength light. The bigger problem is that phased array steering wastes a lot of the energy in broad directions. Not only does that reduce the power of the weapon, it also advertises the location of the weapon and ship, which might be really bad. It might be worth it to use a less powerful laser with either mechanical steering or some kind of solid-state diffraction steering.

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

@@TlalocTemporal It's not the pulse duration it's being able to do accurate delays in the femtosecond range at power to do phased array steering. Also 650nm is red light and weapons might well be shorter wavelength.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@user-qf6yt3id3wyeah I wouldn’t be surprised if it was high frequency UV tbh

[@star-di3wx]

I'd like to note that lasers suffer from several issues 1. Input power to output power efficiency rarely exceeds 15%, especially with solid state lasers. This means that 85% of the energy that the laser draws must be outputted as heat. 2. Lasers suffer from quantum diffraction. Lower wavelengths suffer less. Either way, what this does is make the beam "spread" over a distance, decreasing radiant flux and thus, damage. 3. Thermal damage is highly inefficient at taking out targets. Unlike kinetics that inflict their energy as mechanical energy(physically destroying the target), thermal damage means that the target must be vaporized over a long duration of time. Low-duration pulsed lasers can get around this by inflicting thermal shock, but the problem still remains. I've found through experimenting with Children of a Dead Earth, that high velocity railguns(20km/s or more) and, if you don't mind a lil bit of radiation, flinging a large amount of proxy-detonated nukes at the incoming missiles.

[@Tallacus]

"If it can shoot, it can shoot defensively" Unless you are a Phaser Strip in Star Trek, probably the best Point Defense, but you hardly ever see them use it as such

[@commandere2475]

Didn't the Japanese use the Yamatos main guns as AA?

[@jymmykill1611]

I highly doubt of the efficiency of that@@commandere2475

[@hanzzel6086]

​@@commandere2475They tried. And if they had had proximity fuses it might have done something.

[@AdmiralStoicRum]

I believe the phaser ring still has limits based on the number of objects it must intercept. Thiugh, that is not unique to phasers, but if a big bullet can get many interceptions in one shot, i suppose it also dependa on the power output of the phaser. Its firing cycle too. I believe the Class 3 are meant for PDW duty due to low charge, high firing rate. Which is nice

[@kaitlyn__L]

It’s not shown that often, but it happens just enough that it’s definitely a Thing in the setting. That’s also part of why ships generally shoot from 25-100k km in Trek, instead of from millions of km.

[@The_Viscount]

Happy to see Minerva and Archangel from Gundam Seed in this video. SEED ships had prominent CIWS and AMM systems.

[@eight-cloudspurple5871]

Its missile defense technology actually advanced beyond 1950s

[@EugeneParallax]

Some of the immediate comments to the arguments given in the video: - In Expanse, missiles do in fact maneuver, which is why there's an apparent difference in bad and good *guidance*, which defines whether a torpedo can penetrate PDC network, and how hard that network has to predict and counteract that guidance to intercept it. - Missile does of course leave fragments when it gets hit, but most Sci-Fi settings have spaceship hull/armor that makes such fragmentation damage negligible, compared to fused explosive, plasma or nuclear warhead firepower. - I believe beam versus kinetic range is still debatable, given that beam and energy weapons almost unanimously suffer from some sort of scattering, which does not affect kinetics. You can predict and saturate against a target using kinetic artillery, at ranges where energy/beam weapons will lose much of their effectiveness, but at shorter range energy weapons will dominate by accuracy.

[@RorikH]

On the one hand, kinetics do stay in one piece, on the other, a very powerful beam weapon's spread might actually help out when trying to hit something that keeps moving, provided doesn't need 100% of it's power on target to destroy it.

[@DarthBiomech]

Beam and lsers scatter, yes, but there's ways to combat it for beams, and kinetics have absolutely pathetic speeds to really be of use in any space combat outside of double-digit kilometer ranges (Or the enemy's acceleration is pathetically slow).

[@EugeneParallax]

@@DarthBiomech Well it depends, what speeds are we considering pathetic, and how many projectiles are still few enough to effectively avoid. When we're getting into capital-class vessels, can you really rely on acceleration to avoid kinetics heading your way? I mean, in some cases you might be able to hit targets hidden behind planetary objects, where beam weapons would never reach. Because of these and few other examples, I personally think that missiles are best at long range, kinetics are best at medium range, and energy weapons are best for close range.

[@argokarrus2731]

Lasers and other beams actually don't scatter nor lose close to as much effectiveness in space. At long range a kinetic will simply be out-accelerated or dodged by its target, causing the firing platform to miss by dint of being unable to even reach its target in time. Moreover, there isn't any rule which prevents you from shooting down kinetic slugs! In fact, PD Networks are BETTER at downing mass artillery or mortar attacks than they are actual missiles!

[@DarthBiomech]

@@argokarrus2731 > Lasers and other beams actually don't scatter nor lose close to as much effectiveness in space. Diffraction and blooming: Allow us to introduce ourselves!

[@Lafiel-gc8fn]

Nice to see Archangel and Minerva!! Seed is one of the few gundam universe where CIWS and missile defense advanced beyond 1950s,it can actually use missiles toshoot down incoming missiles!

[@countsaintgermain393]

Always loved the laser point defense system against vulture rockets in Dreadnought. Thanks for the nostalgia :)

[@shagrat47]

Watching the Expanse ships firing tons of PDC ammo into the space of the Solar System, I wonder where the rounds end up? Yes, a couple rounds hit the missiles, put the overwhelming majority simply misses and flys on... and on... and only be slowed when hitting anything. 😂

[@hanzzel6086]

Space is *big*, so probably nothing. Or one of the gas giants or their moons (due to how large their gravity wells are). And if not them then the Sun in a few million/billion years.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@hanzzel6086spiralling round and round the sun before finally falling in, like water and a drain. Given all the battles and how many freighters there are I wonder what the mean time between any damage at all is, whether that’s years or centuries.

[@hanzzel6086]

@@kaitlyn__L It really does depend on where they are fired, their velocity, and amount of future travel where those first two happen to put those rounds. Although, theoretically, since those ships would count every round, their trajectories, and their velocity relative to their ship, if you could get the logs from the originator ship, and you where really worried about where they might end up, you could track and deal with those rounds. Up to a point, after a while interference from various gravity wells and innate inaccuracies in the weapons systems would make making useful projections impossible.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@hanzzel6086 exactly! In the present day of the show they likely have no idea where shrapnel from destroyed ships in any Martian-independence tensions with Earth. We never hear about it causing damage but who’s to say they could even distinguish between ship shrapnel or highly-accelerated asteroid dust from mining? Presumably it’s concentrated within the belt and is much lesser outside it; and it probably mostly causes ablation rather than hull punctures, on the few occasions there’s any contact at all. The mean time between even punctures might be longer than the duration of spacefaring human civilisation. It’s hard enough to even predict the density that will lead to Kessler Syndrome on a planetary scale, let alone on a solar system one.

[@hanzzel6086]

@@kaitlyn__L I mean, we are currently at the point where Kessler Syndrome is a serious potential problem for Earth. But yeah, even if you shattered everything in the Solar System you wouldn't come close to inducing it on a stellar scale (fun fact you can fit every planet and their moons (including Pluto and Charon) between the Earth and Luna, with space to spare).

[@SubnetMask]

I'm a bit in love with this xcom deployment theme you've used and I listen to it on loop so when it turned up here I was like yessssss

[@PlaneBoy2520]

There better be like 50 references to the expanse in this video 😤 🤣

[@klaxxon__]

Ships firing continuous streams of PDCs while maneuvering wildly is still the coolest visual from the show.

[@francescogreggio6712]

For a nearly-scientific analysis of missile and anti-missile warfare in space, look no further than David Weber's Honorverse series. It goes into excruciating detail as to how it might work.

[@dogloversrule8476]

I haven’t heard of David Weber or the Honorverse series. I’ll have to look into it

[@wellendowedplatypus9024]

@@dogloversrule8476 SPOILERS: The writing and the plot are... pulp. The space combat is cool at certain times and completely mundane in others, as most are completely decided by relative technological level and treated as such.

[@dogloversrule8476]

@@wellendowedplatypus9024 ok, thanks.

[@francescogreggio6712]

I like the complexity of the universe he created, but yes, his writing is very basic. Not Glynn Stewart level basic, but he's no John Scalzi. Also, for some reason, he feels the need to intersperse his space opera series with MEETINGS where very important people talk about very important, utterly boring details. Yay for a thousand pages of space opera ! Less yay for ten pages straight of space monetary policy....@@wellendowedplatypus9024

[@earnestbrown6524]

@@dogloversrule8476 Also it has been around for awhile. So there is about 30-40 books. Mainline, many sideline, anthologies and so on.

[@macnuke4771]

0:15 Thank you for that nostalgia bomb that I didn’t know I needed.

[@Phrancis5]

Brrrrrrrrrt That is all.

[@johncage5368]

I love your analysis and great comparisons of scifi equipment with what we currently have.

[@gummihu]

Obligatory mention of the Honorverse.

[@zzador]

2:40: They do! In the first battle when the 6 anubis ships attack the donnager the weapons specalist at the donnager mentioned the torpedos of the anubis ships have a very advanced guidance system that gives the PDCs of the donnager a hard time.

[@jacksonmulville2200]

Sorry spacedock but a nuclear point defense is superior.

[@Livingeidolon]

Not as effective as you'd think. There's no atmosphere to propagate a shock wave to get a big explosion

[@TheAchilles26]

No it really isn't, that's heinously cost inefficient. A wild and brainless waste of perfectly good nukes.

[@jacksonmulville2200]

@@TheAchilles26 sorry couldn’t read your comment because I was blinded by the holy light of atom

[@CollinEddy]

I didn't expect to come here to find a summary of my early career- That was a lot of footage like the stuff I got during tests! Very cool!

[@Guy_on_Youtube]

Free Palestine btw

[@LostCauseRT]

Not even in space are we safe from unrelated internet political arguments.

[@Garwinium]

I agree, but this has nothing to do with the video you goofy goober

[@meeep9099]

Go free them yourself

[@Garwinium]

@@meeep9099 based

[@TheThingInMySink]

@@LostCauseRT If you need to be sheltered from the opinion that Palestinians shouldn't be genocided then honestly you probably shouldn't be on the internet, because there are way worse opinions out there.

[@Nautules83]

that Warthunder forums joke had me cracking up!

[@TheAuraEngineer]

Just wanted to say thanks, was getting attacked by a space pirate and didn’t know what to do so I turned to yt. You saved me thank you👨🏾‍🚀

[@iNeo1]

In sci fi which weapon or tactic is dominant depends a lot on where in the arms race you are. In the expanse smaller ships and missiles dominate, but once larger ships have enough energy to power laser weapons, small ships and missiles will get detected and popped easily. Then if they invent materials which reflect or absorb lasers, then it's right back to missiles and kinetic weapons. It's important to focus on the things which don't change, no matter how advanced technology gets. Smaller unpredictable targets are always harder to hit. Being far away is always a good defense. Energy weapons always lose power and accuracy over distance, while kinetic projectiles only lose accuracy. Guided missiles always have limited fuel, but don't lose power or accuracy. Getting hit by a rock always hurts.

[@pettersonystrawman9291]

Missiles in the expanse did dodge around, and the battle was as much a software one, between the guiding software of the missile and the tracking software of the PDC's. That's why you see the guns sweep around, to catch more possible positions of the missile in their bursts. Also, usually on screen there were only seconds for the PDC's to shoot it down.

[@ArchOfWinter]

I approve of the use of XCOM 2 music!

[@WackoMcGoose]

I think the main flaw with the idea of a phased array laser is, PA radars depend on the fact that the radar beams _spread out and overlap_ (as shown in the schematic), whereas lasers don't really do that. Laser beams are "constant width" over long distances, that's the entire reason they're so powerful, is because near-100% of their power remains on target... but since they wouldn't be spreading out and overlapping, there's no area to "steer" it via constructive interference...

[@admiralcasperr]

Not to mention how a small fraction of their power would be available for actual work. Most of AESA aperture energy is simple wasted. This is an improvement over mechanically actuated fire control radars since they already were spewing their power all over the place.

[@WillofDD]

I've been playing with this idea that my starship pdc rounds has a special "ball" in its core that detonates upon coming into contact with a missile that rapidly expands thanks to chemicals that creates an explosion of plasma that creates a reverse thrust that delflects the missile.

[@Emperorvalse]

Excellent coverage of the types and issues of this system. One PDS that was missed was the point defense shield, such as the Argo in Starblazers.

[@hectorrubio7141]

I love PDW because it looks incredible dramatic in the screen, but I think ECM and decoys will be more useful against saturation attacks.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The big question is what kind of weapons are in use. There are basically - dumb projectiles (cannons, railguns, etc) - smart projectiles (all stuff that has it's own propulsion and can maneouver, like torpedos or missiles) - energy weapons (laser cannons and such) and all three would have different ways to defend from: - projectiles can simply be dodged by moving somewhere else - missiles are where point defense is useful since they can simply adjust to a moving target - Energy weapons would need an ablator or some sort of particle cloud to disperse them, at light speed there is no way to dodge. But they also have strengths and weaknesses: - projectiles are easier to dodge, the further away you are. And while there is no air resistance in space, gravity exists, so the projectile might slow down or fall off course trough nearby objects. - missiles will get faster through their own propulsion and can maneouver themselves into the target. They are harder to dodge at range and could even be programmed to lay dormant until the enemy gets in range. Sort of like a minefield that follows you. - energy weapons are the fastest,they are literally at the speed of light, and are unavoidable unless you have FTL capabilities. But they can't deliver any payload. And none of them are better or worse, it all comes down to the kind of story to be told and the kind of combat to be shown. Point Defense Missiles might even be used in creative ways as super short range offensive weapons. There is a scene in Stargate Atlantis where point defense is used. The Daedalus fires it's nuclear missiles at the enemy capital ships, but the wraith fighters intercept them by simply flying into the missiles. Which then prompts the "beam the nukes on their ship" idea. One big thing that most scifi seems to ignore is thermal management. Space is isolated, so your ship would need radiators. Which can be shot off. So you mount them inside your armor with slots that they can be extended through. So I can imagine laser-based warfare being mainly focused on overloading the enemies thermal systems. No need tor burn a hole in the enemy ship, when you can just overheat them. You don't want to use your engines, since they also produce heat. So most fights would be of stationary (or coasting) ships that shoot each other until one side gets too hot and tries to move away. And with some technobabble some sort of particle cloud, ejected at the front of the ship and sucked in at the back, could work. Small particles would have a giant surface area for their volume, allowing for rapid cooling.

[@Vivicect0r]

Oh, I remember designing a heavy cruiser in "From the Depth". Defense starts with ECM, increasing enemy's sensor readings errors, then its dual-purpouse high-ROF sandblaster cannons that shoot missiles at long range, complemented by missile interceptors. A bunch or torpedo interceptors to cover from below. FLAK cannons to shoot at cluster munitions. Close range is LAMS that can intercept shells as well as missiles and deflector shields that have some chance to reflect shells. If all else fail, there goes passive protection with pockets of reactive armor, layers of angled metal and free space, compartments and redundant main systems covered by secondary modules. Self-repair capability to fix holes from stray shots that get through. AI programmed to switch circling side when too much armor was lost on said side. It was a fun thing to build =)

[@Debbiebabe69]

The problem in FTD is a lack of long range high power sensors for detecting missiles, you are stuck with bog standard munition detectors with limited range. This limitation REALLY limits the range of anti-missile missiles, yes you *can* design a huge medium interceptor missile battery carrying both flack and submunitions, but it will only fire at regular ciws range as thats all you can detect missiles at. The alternative is really janky, but you *can* put a *regular* ai targetting module on your interceptor batteries, and set it to fire a slow steady stream of missiles at the largest enemy ship in sight. These missiles will merrily sail towards the enemy ship until their seeker picks up an incoming missile when they will divert and go for the missile instead.

[@edwardbarton1680]

FYI, "Ponce" as in the ship, is pronounced with two syllables. It's named after the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, which is in turn named after Ponce de León. Also, it's now fully decommissioned. "Ponce" with one syllable has a less-than-ideal definition in British slang.