Macross - Mecha, Weapons, and Technology

[Ithekro]

Interesting.

So for an orbital laser system to function it would either need to be a very limited fire weapon (to keep heat buildup to a minimum) or have absolutely huge amount of mass and area to cool down its main weapon system. (area for the radiators, and/or mass for the cooing system liquid). To place that sort of mass in orbit would be difficult with our currect grade of rocketry with a Saturn V and eqivalents being the heavy lifter in terms of mass possible to launch from the surface of the Earth at one time.

Thus their are limits to current technology size and mass of a single integrated weapon system that is orbital. The Hubble and various Space Stations of the 1970s would be high end mass I would think still.

A multi-part weapons system could be constructed in orbit however, but it would likey be noticed by other interested parties. (such as a space station, multi-component satelite, and certainly a spacecraft).

Now in Macross terms, you have more leyway in what you can and cannot do within the technology. Heat doesn't seem to be as much of a factor with Overtechology. Either the ships and weapons do not produce as much heat, or they have a more efficient means of moving it elsewhere. But in Macross the most effective weapons are still manned and controlled directly. They might be highly automated, but the human element has not been entirely removed from the sutuation. At least up until Macross Plus and Macross Frontier, and even the Ghosts seem limited use due to mistrust of computer control technology (Artificial Intelligence at least).


As for using Orbital Weapon in present or near future conflicts. That depends entirely on the nature of the conflict and the destructive potental of the orbital weapons involved. If the weapons can be made to be low yield and pinpoint accurate in any conditions, they could be useful as artillery. But they need to be in the correct orbits or highly mobile (more mass for propultion systems) in order to be able to target the exact locations required of them.

If they are relative high yield, then they become deterrent systems. Rule through fear so to speak. It only replaces or suppliments the nuclear weapons at that point.

If they are large and mutiple firing capable (thus large mass and/or area) they present large targets in space for ground based systems of similar types. If they are single or minimal use items, they are rather limited in use and thus expensive orbital junk after use....or at best, extremely limited in terms on how often they can be used. (if lasers with small heat sinks, then one shot, multiple hours of cooling down before the next possible shot. If kinetic, possible heat problems, but also limited ammunition with resupply lines being rather long and expensive).

We'll see what happens. I'd rather go out and get the exploring and colonization objectives started to the point where there is something of an interplanetary, or at least orbital economy, before we get into real space weaponry. I'm thinking the first need for any space based military will be the prevention of piracy. Yes piracy. The theft or destruction of commerical traffic between one location and another. Highly valuable if the cargo can be taken and sold. Ore shipments from the asteroid belt for instance. Water shipments to colonies. Food shipments to colonies that are still in the process of becoming self sufficent...or have grown past that point due to commerce.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

First off, you were talking directly about Orbital Kinetic Weapons. I see you've dropped the kinetic part to have the whole shebang - tactical retreat to higher ground? Well, it's not like I haven't seen it before (and it broadens the scope of discussion, which is hardly a bad thing IMO).

Er, no. I've forgotten exactly how this discussion got started, but from the start it's been how orbital weapons in general could make carriers obsolete. Lasers have been mentioned regularly.

True, but I was referring to the fact that CAS aircraft on-station, guided by an FAC, have a clearer picture of what's going on than a guy taking a satellite feed sitting far away.



You do need somewhere for the medevac bird to land, don't you? You're not recognising where I'm coming from here: this particular context is that of an amphibious assault. Heliborne marines deployed from LHAs and LHDs and being medevac'ed back when wounded.

Even so, can't those things be done by helicopters and other VTOL crafts that wouldn't need a whole carrier to deploy?

I'm not sure how commenting on how you seem to have missed the point of this thread, this spirit of the Macross universe, and that we've gotten pretty derailed from purpose of this thread is a personal attack.

Well, yes. This has been completely off topic, since it really isn't about Macross at all.

Originally Posted by ReddyRedWolf

Just to hammer the final nail to coffin of the Orbital Weapons arguement.

United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs

http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html


Oh my goodness nobody can claim they own outer space. Also you shouldn't place weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

Unless you want every superpower and country in the world as your enemy.

A hundred years ago the UN didn't even exist, let alone that treaty. How sure are you that a hundred years from now, either will still be there?



Oh, yeah, and about the cost of putting them up there and servicing them... Yeah, that's definitely an issue. With our current means of space travel, it probably isn't practical. But what if we finally get those space elevators done, for example?

[Daigo]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

I'm not sure how commenting on how you seem to have missed the point of this thread, this spirit of the Macross universe, and that we've gotten pretty derailed from purpose of this thread is a personal attack.

And this comment has derailed the discussion we were having, and isn't very helpful. If you feel this discussion isn't worth your time, then I don't need to address the points you made. And I won't.

None of which actually answers the point that "Rods from God," do not make good close support weapons. They take a significant amount of time to arrive on target and will only have a brief window of oppertunity to attack. You can't just fire straight down, you have to fire at an angle so your round survives reentry.

It wasn't supposed to address that point, because he wasn't making that point. Did the read the calculations Ithekro and I made earlier regarding kinetic penetrators? I suggest you go back and read them, it already addresses the issue of how long it takes for the slug to hit.

There's also the concern about weapon power. There's a lot of kinetic energy in orbital kinetic weapons, maybe too much to make them useful for close support. This also applies to collateral damage, as in Rods from God are good at causing it, which is fine if you don't care about who you're killing, but does make them just a little impractical for urban combat.

Also not true. If you want less weapon power, it's just a matter of shooting a smaller projectile or using lasers instead which can have variable power settings.

Of course, none of this changes the most important thing, which is that to take and hold territory, you need boots on the ground, and that means infantry. That infantry will need support, which in the Macross universe are Destroids and Variable Fighters. Why no just use troopships? Because Troopships aren't designed to deploy fighters in combat. If they were, they become carriers.

I suggest you go back and re-read some of the later posts. We've already covered this. No one was suggesting that OWs will replace ground troops. That wasn't the issue. The issue was the usefullness of aircraft carriers when orbital weapons are more effective.

Most importantly though, Orbital Weapons are next to useless in Macross except for planetary defense, as they don't fight people who live on planets. Everyone that is a serious threat to the UN Spacy/NUNS lives and fights primarily in space and with massive swarms of smaller, fighter sized craft. So, lots of carriers and lots of fighters make sense from a doctrinal point of view until such a time as the UN Space/NUNS develop perfect point defense and ships capable of dealing with Rogue Zentraedi warships on even terms.

In Macross? Yea, maybe. We were discussing the issue from a real world point of view though.

So for an orbital laser system to function it would either need to be a very limited fire weapon (to keep heat buildup to a minimum) or have absolutely huge amount of mass and area to cool down its main weapon system. (area for the radiators, and/or mass for the cooing system liquid). To place that sort of mass in orbit would be difficult with our currect grade of rocketry with a Saturn V and eqivalents being the heavy lifter in terms of mass possible to launch from the surface of the Earth at one time.

Thus their are limits to current technology size and mass of a single integrated weapon system that is orbital. The Hubble and various Space Stations of the 1970s would be high end mass I would think still.

A multi-part weapons system could be constructed in orbit however, but it would likey be noticed by other interested parties. (such as a space station, multi-component satelite, and certainly a spacecraft).

Now in Macross terms, you have more leyway in what you can and cannot do within the technology. Heat doesn't seem to be as much of a factor with Overtechology. Either the ships and weapons do not produce as much heat, or they have a more efficient means of moving it elsewhere. But in Macross the most effective weapons are still manned and controlled directly. They might be highly automated, but the human element has not been entirely removed from the sutuation. At least up until Macross Plus and Macross Frontier, and even the Ghosts seem limited use due to mistrust of computer control technology (Artificial Intelligence at least).


As for using Orbital Weapon in present or near future conflicts. That depends entirely on the nature of the conflict and the destructive potental of the orbital weapons involved. If the weapons can be made to be low yield and pinpoint accurate in any conditions, they could be useful as artillery. But they need to be in the correct orbits or highly mobile (more mass for propultion systems) in order to be able to target the exact locations required of them.

If they are relative high yield, then they become deterrent systems. Rule through fear so to speak. It only replaces or suppliments the nuclear weapons at that point.

If they are large and mutiple firing capable (thus large mass and/or area) they present large targets in space for ground based systems of similar types. If they are single or minimal use items, they are rather limited in use and thus expensive orbital junk after use....or at best, extremely limited in terms on how often they can be used. (if lasers with small heat sinks, then one shot, multiple hours of cooling down before the next possible shot. If kinetic, possible heat problems, but also limited ammunition with resupply lines being rather long and expensive).

We'll see what happens. I'd rather go out and get the exploring and colonization objectives started to the point where there is something of an interplanetary, or at least orbital economy, before we get into real space weaponry. I'm thinking the first need for any space based military will be the prevention of piracy. Yes piracy. The theft or destruction of commerical traffic between one location and another. Highly valuable if the cargo can be taken and sold. Ore shipments from the asteroid belt for instance. Water shipments to colonies. Food shipments to colonies that are still in the process of becoming self sufficent...or have grown past that point due to commerce.

Keep in mind that the future is hard to predict. Almost impossible to predict really. We don't know what warfare will be like in the future, or what technology we will be using. Something like nuclear weapons may be like popguns to a Type 3 civilization. The same kind of political ramifications against nukes in our day, may not exist, or may even be a non-sequitor in the distant future. So we shouldn't really speculate on it.

We can only discuss based on the potential these devices have. So most arguments against OWs will be just technilogical issues, which can be made against any projected weapon that we currently don't possess because it's beyond our technological level. It's a technological hurdle, but potentially they can be more powerful and more effective than any weapon we've seen before. And that's the point. Extrapolating the absolute potential of the devices we are discussing. The absolute potential for an OW, IMO is very high. The absolute potential for a conventional aircraft carrier is low. That is, unless it can do things, that current carriers can't. Like move underwater.

[Tak]

Originally Posted by Daigo

In Macross? Yea, maybe. We were discussing the issue from a real world point of view though.

And why are we discussing real-world orbital weapons when this thread is clearly a Macross one? Kindly take this irrelevance elsewhere.

- Tak

[SethEng]

Originally Posted by Daigo

Also not true. If you want less weapon power, it's just a matter of shooting a smaller projectile or using lasers instead which can have variable power settings.

Or you can take the cheaper option of flying a plane over the target and dropping a guided bomb on said target. And said option will probably always be significantly cheaper and faster than putting a heavy weapon system in orbit and then waiting for it to be in the right position to fire.

Also, lasers? Really? The atmosphere would cause pretty significant amounts of dispersion with the laser and I'm not sure we could, with modern, or near future, power technology build a laser that could do damage from orbit. Unless you're aware of technology that can and can do so more cost effectively than carrier borne airplanes can put bombs on targets.

Originally Posted by Daigo

I suggest you go back and re-read some of the later posts. We've already covered this. No one was suggesting that OWs will replace ground troops. That wasn't the issue. The issue was the usefullness of aircraft carriers when orbital weapons are more effective.

You say it's more effective, you have to prove that. A carrier can, as was pointed out early, do a lot more than just carry planes and bomb things. It also has an advantage in that it can sit off a coast for extended periods of time which an orbital weapon system cannot do. Well, I suppose it could, but then it's a relatively easy target for modern weapon systems to shoot down. In case you missed it, the US Navy did something similar not too long ago, and this is the problem with weapons in orbit. They travel in complete predictable paths and we can build a weapon system capable of shooting them down, and a weapon system that more likely than not costs less than putting the orbital weapons in space.

It is not cheap to put things into space and in order to have even coverage to do a carrier's job you'd need a lot of orbital weapons which would probably cost significantly more than the modern US Carrier fleet. Oh, I'm certain they could be very effective in certain situations, but I don't see anything that suggests they'll be cost-effective now or in the near future.

[C.A.]

As just a spectator of the ongoing argument, I agree with the above.

EDIT: By above I mean Tak's post.

[Ithekro]

Remember in warfare, abolute power in not usually an option. Especially as a result of the Cold War. If we are still talking about weaponry to be used in and around Earth against humans, then a high power OW is one and only one thing, a deturrent weapon....one that in never to be used. A threat of force basically. Basic theory would have the weapon (any type) powerful enough to destroy a large area of land, or potentially destroy a large area of land.

On most practial levels, a smaller weapons system is required. In this day and age civilian casualties and colateral damage in frowned upon as inefficent and wasteful. Most modern weapon systems are made to be accurate enough to go through a window or even a port hole to cause damage to a smaller area effectively. Bombing runs use fewer bombs today than they use to because one does not need to carpet bomb an area anymore to take out an installation when a single weapon can pinpoint the specific building or even person required to be eliminated.

We've had the nuclear option open to use for well over 60 years now, and it has not been used since 1945. Because the known results are worse than just destroying the target. If you are using scales, a nuke may be nothing to a higher level civilization...when its military is involved. On the civilian level, a nuclear blast will do the same thing as it has always done...wipe out areas and lay down radiation. It may do nothing to an advanced warship or a city under a shield of some kind...but without such protection...they are doomed just as we are doomed.

Thus the question on the Orbital Weapons is not just a question of techical issues, but also practical issues. Move your debate from the techincal to the practical needs of the battlefield of today:

Can a OW do what current weapon systems do?
Can it do them better?
Can it do them cheaper?
Can it be effective in all conditions?
Can it be supplied?
Can it be defended?
Will it be a tactical or strategic weapon system?
Will it be able to provide cover for ground forces if used as part of an invasion force.
Will is be able to defense ground forces under attack from other ground forces or aircraft?
Will it be accurate enough to take out the target and only the target even in a city?

What won't it be able to do, and what must be kept in the militaries to do what this weapon system cannot do?

Does all of the above make it superior to an aircraft carrier?
Does it make it less expensive than an aircraft carrier?

Will it replace the aircraft carrier, or just be another weapon that is used side by side with the aircraft carrier?

Remember that an aircraft carrier is definded as a warship that carries aircraft as a major part of its mission. One could include any vessel that would have been once classifed as a helicopter carrier (LHA and LHD are derived from the aircraft carriers of old. Namely the old CVL and CVE designs, followed by their WWII vintage Fleet Carrier cousins in lesser roles).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note this discussion is based on the notion that the use of fighters and thus aircraft carriers in Macross is incorrect form of space warfare. The space weapons would make such a weapon style obsolete and pointless.

Once resolved the issue should revert back to Macross proper with the issue of how one operates fighters effectively in space using the techology one would have used for the Orbital Weapons described perviously plus Overtechnology. And basically why fighters and why a carrier type instead of what the scientist say is correct?

[ReddyRedWolf]

Once resolved the issue should revert back to Macross proper with the issue of how one operates fighters effectively in space using the techology one would have used for the Orbital Weapons described perviously plus Overtechnology. And basically why fighters and why a carrier type instead of what the scientist say is correct?

Originally Posted by 4Tran

As the title suggests, the purpose of this thread is to discuss the Macross Mecha, Weapons, and Technology

Just to place the guideline in the opening post by the moderator.

Originally Posted by Daigo

In Macross? Yea, maybe. We were discussing the issue from a real world point of view though.

Deliberate thread derailment.


Your discussion is appropriate at the general chat section not the Macross section.

[Daigo]

Just a general comment, I wasn't the one to start the discussion on orbital weapons, and aircraft carriers but I will continue to discuss the issue with anyone who is making comments for me to read, and respond. If you aren't interested in discussing the issue any further, merely don't address the issue. I'm not the only one discussing this issue, if you continue to harrass me about it, I'll just report you.

Originally Posted by SethEng

Or you can take the cheaper option of flying a plane over the target and dropping a guided bomb on said target. And said option will probably always be significantly cheaper and faster than putting a heavy weapon system in orbit and then waiting for it to be in the right position to fire.

Cheaper how? We are talking about aircraft carriers, so the aircraft carrier's cost factors in, which is absolutely exorbitant. Certainly not faster. A carrier moves at a snail's pace, and even a jet moves much slower than an orbital weapon. The international space station average speed of 27,700 km per hour and completes 15.77 orbits per day. Presumably an orbital weapon can move even faster than that. An orbital weapon also has greater range, and wider firing arcs.

Also, lasers? Really? The atmosphere would cause pretty significant amounts of dispersion with the laser and I'm not sure we could, with modern, or near future, power technology build a laser that could do damage from orbit. Unless you're aware of technology that can and can do so more cost effectively than carrier borne airplanes can put bombs on targets.

The word you are looking for is attenuation. Visible spectrum lasers are fairly transparent to the atmosphere, so attenuation is minimal. And, I've already addressed the point of the power of a laser. The absolute potential of a laser's power is extremely high. Modern and near future lasers are weak, but potentially they can be very powerful. We are discussing the potential of these weapons. There isn't much potential in an aircraft carrier, even in the far flung future that I can see unless it can travel underwater.

You say it's more effective, you have to prove that. A carrier can, as was pointed out early, do a lot more than just carry planes and bomb things. It also has an advantage in that it can sit off a coast for extended periods of time which an orbital weapon system cannot do.

An OW can do that easily. Geo-sync orbit is easy to do.

Well, I suppose it could, but then it's a relatively easy target for modern weapon systems to shoot down. In case you missed it, the US Navy did something similar not too long ago, and this is the problem with weapons in orbit. They travel in complete predictable paths and we can build a weapon system capable of shooting them down, and a weapon system that more likely than not costs less than putting the orbital weapons in space.

What else can it do that an OW or a cheaper vehicle can't already do? We already covered logistics, and troop carriers, so don't bring that up. Not any more easy of a target than it already was. No, they don't have to travel in predictable paths. Especially if it's designed for war.

It is not cheap to put things into space and in order to have even coverage to do a carrier's job you'd need a lot of orbital weapons which would probably cost significantly more than the modern US Carrier fleet. Oh, I'm certain they could be very effective in certain situations, but I don't see anything that suggests they'll be cost-effective now or in the near future.

Right now? No, it's not cheap. In the future, when we have more advanced technology, orbital elevators, and mass drivers? Who knows. We are talking about absolute potential, and the potential is there. Therefore, talking about costs is pointless, because we don't know how cheap or expensive things will be in the future. In the 1980s a 1 gig harddrive went for thousands of dollars. Today, it's worth peanuts.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Just a general comment, I wasn't the one to start the discussion on orbital weapons, and aircraft carriers but I will continue to discuss the issue with anyone who is making comments for me to read, and respond. If you aren't interested in discussing the issue any further, merely don't address the issue. I'm not the only one discussing this issue, if you continue to harrass me about it, I'll just report you.

Then report me and everybody else who see your behavior for what it is.

I already talked to Monir how you're spamming the thread.

Derailing from its purpose which is stated in the thread guidline.

[Tak]

Originally Posted by Daigo

Just a general comment, I wasn't the one to start the discussion on orbital weapons, and aircraft carriers but I will continue to discuss the issue with anyone who is making comments for me to read, and respond. If you aren't interested in discussing the issue any further, merely don't address the issue. I'm not the only one discussing this issue, if you continue to harrass me about it, I'll just report you.

The comments and comparisons were made in relevance to Macross. I cannot say the same about your latest posts.

- Tak

[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by Daigo

No. Not even remotely true. For one thing, the projectiles launched from a railgun don't have to be ferromagnetic, they only have to be conductive. A tungsten slug is diamagnetic, meaning it's as magnetic as a piece of wood. Furthermore, even if it was magnetic, it would not be profoundly affected by earth's magnetic field because it's so pathetically weak. The amount of energy required to create a magnetic field that would profoundly affect a hypervelocity ferromagnetic object is ridiculously high especially considering a magnetic field's strength falls off exponentially the further you are from the source.

Diago I suggest you do a little more research concerning the topics at hand. I found various mis-understandings on basic scientific basis within your arguments.
Such as basis on electromagnetism.

I suggest you start with Lorentz force in which it discribes how charged particles behave within a magnetic field and how velocity becomes a variable.
To simply elaborate if you stick a bar magnet into a coil, the faster you thrust the magnet into the coil the stronger an electric current you generate within the coil(and visa versa).
Another obvious mistake is the height in obtaining geo-synchronise orbit　which is approx.36,000Km above the equator. "This altitude is significant because it produces an orbital period equal to the Earth's period of rotation, known as the sidereal day."(excerpt from wiki)
I also see some error within your understanding concerning lasers but I will pass on that.
Hope you study alittle more.

[SethEng]

Originally Posted by Daigo

What else can it do that an OW or a cheaper vehicle can't already do? We already covered logistics, and troop carriers, so don't bring that up. Not any more easy of a target than it already was. No, they don't have to travel in predictable paths. Especially if it's designed for war.

See, I wasn't really thinking about replying, since this is way, way off any discussion about Macross and all that, but the bolded part got me. Really? Orbital weapons are sort of defined by the orbital part, but please, by all means, have them designed to fling themselves out of a stable orbit so they can come crashing back down into the atmosphere.

It's just like the lasers. If you can build a laser powerful enough to shoot things on earth from orbit, I can probably build a cheaper one to shoot your orbital weapon from the surface. You see, technology cuts both ways. It's not like everyone else is going to sit here on Earth and go "Oh no, orbital weapons, there's nothing at all we can do!"

I'm still trying to figure out your claim about a carrier's lack of potential, since other people pointed out all the other things they can do besides carry planes which bomb things. Of course, you just seemed to ignore all that with hand waving about the future and such, so I don't really see much point in continuing to attempt to discuss anything at all with you.

[March]

Originally Posted by Daigo

Just a general comment, I wasn't the one to start the discussion on orbital weapons, and aircraft carriers but I will continue to discuss the issue with anyone who is making comments for me to read, and respond. If you aren't interested in discussing the issue any further, merely don't address the issue. I'm not the only one discussing this issue, if you continue to harrass me about it, I'll just report you.

Can we get off this? I don't know if it's been pointed out to you yet, but you're not winning any points with this line of posts. I'd much rather read the discussions here without the need to filter through the jabbing and sand throwing. Thank you.

[Ithekro]

Mind you that the distances and speed I was calculating were for straight down only, and using the speed as an average. Distance covered by an average speed should be relatively accurate, only the distance changes, but the distances increase time on target by a lot when one goes from low earth orbit to anything that might be geo-synchronise. At 36,000 km we are talking (at an average speed of Mach 25 or about 8,575 m/s) an hour and 10 minutes (70 minutes) for a projectile to hit a target.

Maybe the projectile can go faster, but it will have to be traveling awfully fast to make up for 70 minutes of travel time. Even if it could be boosted up to the speed of the Voyager I spacecraft (presently moving at 17.1 km/s) it would take a projectile slightly over 35 minutes to reach an earthbound target.

If one can manage to boost the projectile to 0.1 of light speed, than you'll have slighly over a second, maybe a second and a half to hitting an earthbound target. From 36,000 km that is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obviously the Macross Universe took a different approach based on captured alien technology. While the SDF-1 has railguns, did we ever see it use them? It also can do massive missile spam like the post-war fighters start to be able to do with their own micro-missiles.

The SDF-1's main defense seems to still be the mecha. It's secondary is its own missiles and weaponry. It's third (later on) was it's Point Defense Barrier system. Finally its main offensive system seems to be the Main Gun followed by the rather customized use of the Barrier system and brute force (mixed with mecha missile and shell spamming).

Yet the Macross powers all seem to resort to heavy use of small craft to wage war until they can get large numbers of capital ships into firing positions...then its massive beam batteries that destroy fleets and planetary surfaces. Yet I do wonder. We've seen very few fleet level actions. Did those actions have large amounts of heavy beam weapon use, or did the fleets still resort to more conventional attacks and fighters?

[ReddyRedWolf]

In Macross 7 there wasn't much fleet on fleet action as the enemy used variable fighters to terrorize the fleet.

UN Spacy sent an equally proportionate response. As the Protodevlin's tactics were hit and run.

Against a small fleet they did use the Macross cannon. Also when the main Protodevlin Varauta fleet of 77,000 ships pushed them down on Lux.

As for Macross Frontier this is the first time we see a full fleet on fleet action.

Only on Macross Frontier reaction weapon delivery is via fighters instead of being fired from ships like Macross 7.

[Daigo]

Originally Posted by Tri-ring

Diago I suggest you do a little more research concerning the topics at hand. I found various mis-understandings on basic scientific basis within your arguments.
Such as basis on electromagnetism.

I suggest you start with Lorentz force in which it discribes how charged particles behave within a magnetic field and how velocity becomes a variable.
To simply elaborate if you stick a bar magnet into a coil, the faster you thrust the magnet into the coil the stronger an electric current you generate within the coil(and visa versa).
Another obvious mistake is the height in obtaining geo-synchronise orbit　which is approx.36,000Km above the equator. "This altitude is significant because it produces an orbital period equal to the Earth's period of rotation, known as the sidereal day."(excerpt from wiki)
I also see some error within your understanding concerning lasers but I will pass on that.
Hope you study alittle more.

The matters on magnetism are irrelevant. If you are referring to my points on railguns, none of the points you brought up contradict what I said.

I never made a mistake in the height of geo-sync orbit, because I never stated a height in obtaining geo-sync orbit. I merely said a OW can attain geo-sync orbit, and it can.

Please re-read my posts more carefully before replying.

See, I wasn't really thinking about replying, since this is way, way off any discussion about Macross and all that, but the bolded part got me. Really? Orbital weapons are sort of defined by the orbital part, but please, by all means, have them designed to fling themselves out of a stable orbit so they can come crashing back down into the atmosphere.

It's just like the lasers. If you can build a laser powerful enough to shoot things on earth from orbit, I can probably build a cheaper one to shoot your orbital weapon from the surface. You see, technology cuts both ways. It's not like everyone else is going to sit here on Earth and go "Oh no, orbital weapons, there's nothing at all we can do!"

I'm still trying to figure out your claim about a carrier's lack of potential, since other people pointed out all the other things they can do besides carry planes which bomb things. Of course, you just seemed to ignore all that with hand waving about the future and such, so I don't really see much point in continuing to attempt to discuss anything at all with you.

By all means, if you don't want to reply because you think it's off-topic, you don't need to. Some users here think I'm the only one perpetuating this discussion. So I'll address the points you made if you want me to, if not, just drop it.

Mind you that the distances and speed I was calculating were for straight down only, and using the speed as an average. Distance covered by an average speed should be relatively accurate, only the distance changes, but the distances increase time on target by a lot when one goes from low earth orbit to anything that might be geo-synchronise. At 36,000 km we are talking (at an average speed of Mach 25 or about 8,575 m/s) an hour and 10 minutes (70 minutes) for a projectile to hit a target.

Indeed. At geo-sync, lasers or missiles would have to be used, or if using kinetic weapons, they would have to be used against immobile targets.

While the SDF-1 has railguns, did we ever see it use them? It also can do massive missile spam like the post-war fighters start to be able to do with their own micro-missiles.

It also has the Macross cannon. With that, I don't think you need railguns.

Yet the Macross powers all seem to resort to heavy use of small craft to wage war until they can get large numbers of capital ships into firing positions...then its massive beam batteries that destroy fleets and planetary surfaces. Yet I do wonder. We've seen very few fleet level actions. Did those actions have large amounts of heavy beam weapon use, or did the fleets still resort to more conventional attacks and fighters?

It seemed like they spammed the Macross cannon whenever it was availible. Which is logical. I can see the point of small fighters for sending down to planets, but for ship to ship combat, they should be slaughtered in short order by lasers. In space combat, speed, and manueverability come second to weapon power, armor, and reaction mass. All of which bigger ships excell in.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Daigo

It seemed like they spammed the Macross cannon whenever it was availible. Which is logical. I can see the point of small fighters for sending down to planets, but for ship to ship combat, they should be slaughtered in short order by lasers. In space combat, speed, and manueverability come second to weapon power, armor, and reaction mass. All of which bigger ships excell in.

I don't think you have ever watched Macross's very first series in which Milia bashed her way into the enemy fortress just to show off her baby or Macross Zero for that matter.

There is a reason why an elephant can be defeated by a mouse. A good example of such happening would be the 2nd last episode of Code Geass R2 (the Chinese took control of Lelouch's flagship by penetration of smaller craft). It doesn't take a genius to know that every weapon has its role in combat, and basic field command tactics about offense-defence as written in Sun Tzu's Art of War.

[Anh_Minh]

Daigo was talking about "realism"... not "I can dodge laser" anime.

[Daigo]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Daigo was talking about "realism"... not "I can dodge laser" anime.

Haha yes. The fact that he said, "There is a reason why an elephant can be defeated by a mouse" makes me lol.

Here's a big hint. Space combat ain't gona be ANYTHING like naval combat on the open ocean. Space combat isn't going to be like WW2 in space. It's not going to be like the Iraq War in space. And it's definitely not gona be a bubblegum pop anime in space. It's going to be its own unique thing. I've been saying this over and over again, but space fighters in space, make no sense. I can state the reasons over and over again to newbies who wander into this thread without actually reading the discussion first, but it gets tiresome. In short, space fighters don't actually do anything a bigger ship can't already do better. And no, speed and manueverability aren't as important as other factors in a space setting for various reasons.