Lasers
Xenu Galactic-Conqueror
There are two lasers to examine, the pistol used by the assasin and the
rifle(s) used by the commander and his security chief (we can ignore the
little red laser on the rifle that has the amazing ability to make a noise
as it passes you ;-).
The pistol made a whine, like a capacitor charging up, before it fired. The
rifle made a "thunk" as it fired. Now, are these lasers, or are they some
sort of directed energy or particle weapon (or something weird like the Vorlon
ship)?
If they are lasers, the "thunk" suggests to me that they are supposed to be
explosive-driven lasers of some sort. There are two ways to do this --
indirectly or directly explosively driven. To drive a laser indirectly, you
use a flux compression generator. A flux compression generator takes an
inductor (ala coil, coaxial cable, or even two flat plates), and uses an
explosive to crush the inductor. Since inductance times current is
conserved, as the inductance goes to zero, you can imagine where the current
goes ;-). You can then use this current to drive a laser pulse. Alternatively,
you can use an explosive driven shock to get a laser pulse directly.
To give you an idea of scale, a generator about the size of two coffee cans
can generate several MJ of energy. At Los Alamos, there is a warehouse full
of capacitor banks that can generate maybe 10 MJ. A little explosive-
driven laser was designed as a shell which is fired from a 40mm grenade
launcher.
In either case the power of the lasers was around 5-10 MW. This stuff was
done about ten or fifteen years ago, and I don't know if it has been
improved or not.
Incidentally, I am glad to see a show trying to put some science back in
Science Fiction (as much as I like Star Trek up to the last two seasons).
S
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Skip Sanders
>
> There are two lasers to examine, the pistol used by the assasin and the
> rifle(s) used by the commander and his security chief (we can ignore the
>
handweapons -- because they aren't lasers. They are defined by JMS as
being charged particle weapons, not light beams. (Other than the
sighting laser, of course.)
--
INTERNET: skip...@netlink.cts.com (Skip Sanders)
UUCP: ...!ryptyde!netlink!skipsand
NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115
G.C.J. Timm
In a previous article, skip...@netlink.cts.com (Skip Sanders) says:
>> Okay, new topic: How do lasers work in the Babylon-5 universe?
>> There are two lasers to examine, the pistol used by the assasin and the
>> rifle(s) used by the commander and his security chief (we can ignore the
>>
>While your discussion of lasers is fun, it has no bearing on the B5
>handweapons -- because they aren't lasers. They are defined by JMS as
>being charged particle weapons, not light beams. (Other than the
>sighting laser, of course.)
Which explains the large size of the shoulder fired weapon.
I'd like to talk to the designers about ergonometrics, I'd feel silly as
all heck shooting somebody with a surfboard!
The targeting lasers make sense. Unlike a certain other set of series
where even the technical manual makes no mention of "sights" targeting
systems or any other means of pointing. ;->
Speaking of massive amounts of money, how come no techmanual or
novelization? Sheesh! What good is a market based economy if I can't buy
what I want! A video tape w/extensions would be a money maker too I'd
wager.
Jeff
Who wants his B5!
David Strauss
which will probably come out late fall.
As for a tech manual, Joes' words were to the effect of "Ron's
comping at the bit to do a tech manual." I expect we'll see
one soon after the series starts.
Xenu Galactic-Conqueror
>While your discussion of lasers is fun, it has no bearing on the B5
>handweapons -- because they aren't lasers. They are defined by JMS as
>being charged particle weapons, not light beams. (Other than the
>sighting laser, of course.)
Well then, is anything more specific known?
>
>--
>INTERNET: skip...@netlink.cts.com (Skip Sanders)
>UUCP: ...!ryptyde!netlink!skipsand
>NetLink Online Communications * Public Access in San Diego, CA (619) 453-1115
Veets
Philip Richard Banks
[stuff deleted]
>The targeting lasers make sense. Unlike a certain other set of series
>where even the technical manual makes no mention of "sights" targeting
>systems or any other means of pointing. ;->
If you are referring to Star Trek then yes they actually do make reference
to targetting systems many times. I cite STII: The Wrath of Khan - where one
of Khan's underlings prepares a phaser targetting lock on the Enterprise
before firing. And TNG 'Redemption' where Worf talks about *not* using standard
locking/targetting systems because the attacking ships would detect the
weapons lock...
And that is just two examples off the top of my head. I could probably find
more...
If you are going to have a hack at a show, which I agree has alot wrong
with it, at least do so on the things it actually *does* get wrong...
Philip
Douglas R Fils
Speaking of "actually" getting things wrong. I think the writer
was talking about no targeting systems on the hand held weapons, not the
ship based weapons, in Trek.
--
Sean O'Connell
> In article <21hacv$q...@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> ac...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
> >The targeting lasers make sense. Unlike a certain other set of series
> >where even the technical manual makes no mention of "sights" targeting
> >systems or any other means of pointing. ;->
>
> If you are referring to Star Trek then yes they actually do make reference
> to targetting systems many times. I cite STII: The Wrath of Khan - where one
> of Khan's underlings prepares a phaser targetting lock on the Enterprise
> before firing. And TNG 'Redemption' where Worf talks about *not* using stand
> weapons lock...
The topic was hand weapons, not ship weapons. ST has people basically shooting
on the draw and always hitting their target (unless s/he/it is supposed to get
away).
-------
Sean O'Connell I'm insane, but it keeps me from going crazy.
se...@hacks.arizona.edu
Death - Life's way of saying, "You can let go of your ankles now."
Philip Richard Banks
[stuff deleted]
>The topic was hand weapons, not ship weapons.
Mea culpa. The phrasing of the posting was sufficiently open that I
assumed they were referring to all weaponry, not just hand held units.
> ST has people basically shooting
>on the draw and always hitting their target (unless s/he/it is supposed to get
>away).
Yes and the average ST episode has people firing at ranges of 5 metres or
less. I ceratinly can't remember off hand any major long range hand held
weaponry fights occuring in ST. Nor do I expect any to occur in a hurry
either as ST is primarily a drama and such long range combat scenes do not
fit in the "ST" mould of drama.
At anyrate it has been shown also several times in the episodes that they
*do* miss. Worf misses in his target practice sessions on the Holodeck (see
'Redemption' again, Captain Tryler (sp?) in 'Conspiracy' misses Riker
and Picard and they have even shown the ship's phasers with their target
locking missing - see 'The Price' for an example.
I would argue that given that all StarFleet staff are supposed to take
at least rudimentary hand phaser training and the exceedingly short ranges
we see the weapons fired at, that misses are rare. Of course if we saw
untrained staff I'd expect higher miss rates. :)
However this discussion is going completely off topic, I merely wanted
to point out that the criticism aimed was somewhat unjustified. If you want to
continue debating it I suggest we move it rec.arts.startrek.tech.
G.C.J. Timm
Phil, Old Trekker,
I saw the first ST-TOS on the first day it was broadcast!
I own an original tech manual in the Plastic Binder. I own the TNG tech
manual and in NEITHER one is a sighting system FOR THE HAND HELD ORDNANCE
even mentioned!
I even owned an original ST-AMT model phaser....some <explitive deleted>
swiped it, still in the original plastic wrap!
Techie Trekkie Forever!
Jeff
Jonathan Roy
>novelization? Sheesh! What good is a market based economy if I can't buy
>what I want! A video tape w/extensions would be a money maker too I'd
>wager.
>
>Jeff
>Who wants his B5!
David Gerrold (sp?) will be doing the novelization, and is also
writing scripts now as well. No official word on the novel
release date, but I'd guess it to be around the start of
the series next year. :)
--
F F Jonathan Roy, of the Free Access Foundation Email: ni...@faf.org
A Mail f...@halcyon.com for information, or FTP to halcyon.com: /pub/faf/
F F Vorlons, of the Galactic Bloodshed Development Team GEnie: J.ROY18
"Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design." - _RotJ_
Skip Sanders
> Well then, is anything more specific known?
Last message I read from Joe on GEnie before the GEnie price increase
caused me to leave it was that the weapons were being redesigned
for the series, and were "cooler", whatever Joe means by that... :)
They are called "Particle Projection Weapons" (or was that "Phased PW"?)
in earlier messages from Joe. Assume they shoot bundles of charged
particles of some type.
There are no details on actual operation - after all, this IS TV, not
"real world"... :)
William December Starr
In article <1993Jul9.0...@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>,
> The topic was hand weapons, not ship weapons. ST has people basically
> shooting on the draw and always hitting their target (unless s/he/it
> is supposed to get away).
Well let's face it: given that phaser beams were obviously intelligent
enough to be able to tell where the target ended and the surrounding
universe began -- consider all the times that a Star Trek character got
disintegrated right down to the bottom of the soles of his shoes,
without the destructive effect continuing on into the floor or ground --
is it really much of a stretch to also believe that the beams were smart
enough to find their targets in the first place?
:-) :-) :-) :-)
-- William December Starr <wds...@world.std.com>
Chris DuPuis
I don't know about that. At last on the Next Generation, the target can
almost always dodge the phaser beam AFTER it is fired at them. From this,
I'd say that it can be concluded that either phaser beams are inherently
off target, or that the various races of the galaxy have developed some
really amazing reflexes, so that they can see things using FTL
communications beams, and get out of the way of a speeding photon.
Interesting...
>:-) :-) :-) :-)
and even more so :-)
>-- William December Starr <wds...@world.std.com>
--
Christopher DuPuis go...@ugcs.caltech.edu
"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
-Archimedes