Question about starship armor

[billclo]

Hi. I am wondering if there is any official stance on whether reflec coating on a starship hull is effective versus bomb-pumped lasers?

I am thinking not, because most likely regular turret-based lasers are visible spectrum or near visible, where as the bomb-pumped laser is an X-ray laser of much higher intensity.

 

[rust]

As far as I know, the rules are silent on this. However, it would be logical
that turret lasers would be x-ray lasers, too.

 

[billclo]

As far as I know, the only known way to generate an X-ray laser is to use a nuclear bomb; certainly it's not something you would lightly detonate in a turret I should think.

 

[far-trader]

There is the idea of tunable lasers for varying effectiveness.

Turret lasers would be tunable through the whole spectrum so the attacker could choose the frequency best suited to defeat the defenses/environment encountered.

Bomb Pumped Lasers would have to be selected by frequency and if you've loaded the wrong ones for an encounter you'd have to unload, store, and reload.

Trade-offs

Though maybe not reflected in MGT rules.

 

[far-trader]

Nope, non-nuke pumped X-ray freq lasers are in use/development. In Traveller terms they would seem to be Pulse Lasers (more power but not as continuous, need cooling time between shots).

 

[rust]

As far as I know, the only known way to generate an X-ray laser is to use a nuclear bomb ...

Not at all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_laser

 

[billclo]

Okay, it appears my knowledge of X-ray lasers is out of date.

It appears the general consensus is that reflec would be effective versus X-ray lasers then.

 

[far-trader]

Seems the simplest method. Whatever Reflec is, however it works, it protects against all Lasers.

The next question might be, does it also protect against other beam weapons?

If not, why not?

 

[rust]

If not, why not?

Particles, fusion bolts and plasma have mass and a lot of kinetic energy,
they are as difficult to reflect as a projectile or missile, and mesons do
not travel through normal space and do not interact with the armour (at
least this is how I understand Traveller's concept of mesons, real world
mesons are different animals).

 

[Solomani666]

Hi. I am wondering if there is any official stance on whether reflec coating on a starship hull is effective versus bomb-pumped lasers?

I am thinking not, because most likely regular turret-based lasers are visible spectrum or near visible, where as the bomb-pumped laser is an X-ray laser of much higher intensity.

They are absolutely effective against bomb pumped lasers.


.

 

[Solomani666]

As far as I know, the only known way to generate an X-ray laser is to use a nuclear bomb; certainly it's not something you would lightly detonate in a turret I should think.

I am almost, but not entirely, certain that my dentist does NOT have a nuclear bomb in his office.


.

 

[locarno24]

And - just as a counter-comment, firing a PGMP is basically setting off a nuclear bomb - which is the standard small arms for imperial heavy infantry.

So don't rule out the nuke-powered turret out of hand.
The nuke-powered dentist....results unclear, ask again later.

 

[SSWarlock]

The nuke-powered dentist....results unclear, ask again later.

Dentists with Nukes(tm) - "When you absolutely, positively must have a tooth removed. We even do root canals!"

 

[GypsyComet]

And - just as a counter-comment, firing a PGMP is basically setting off a nuclear bomb...

Not quite. "Plasma" has a wide range of densities, energies, and velocities. A Plasma Gun is compressing, packaging, and accelerating "Extreme Flame" (open flames being a low grade plasma).

A Fusion Gun, on the other hand, starts with a plasma, induces the beginnings of fusion in the mix, then vents and accelerates THAT. An FGMP is basically a pocket nuclear furnace blast to the face.

 

[locarno24]

Ah. Apologies. FGMP then. I knew one of the two was essentially a nuclear bomb with a shutter door...