On 24 Jun 2015 at 20:28, Tim wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 05:00:31AM -0400, Richard Aiken wrote:
> > Absent developments like that, a fusion-powered energy weapon is
> > simply going to vaporize any reasonable opponent fairly quickly,
> > with very little muss or fuss.
>
> That's not a given at all.  For any given weapons there is always
> going to be a range beyond which it does not automatically hit and
> kill, and space combat is most likely to take place outside that
> range.  The greater the technology, the more distant that range will
> be, and the timescales for changing that range will be correspondingly
> longer.
>
> The reason is simple: a combatant who fires from well beyond the
> certain-kill range gives up essentially nothing for a *chance* of
> killing their opponent.  So almost all of the weapon fire early in an
> engagement is going to miss or be otherwise ineffective until the
> distance is closed, and closing that distance is going to take a great
> deal longer than a second without some sort of magic telportation.

An interesting (and often overlooked) factor is that with lasers,
only a fairly near miss will give the target any idea that they are
even being fired at!

Otherwise the only indication is that the firing vessel is generating
extra waste heat from doing *something*.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com