Handheld energy weapons

[Drashner1]

I've read alot of luke campbells work, its certainly interesting stuff but I don't know whether his designs (if they were ever implemented in the future) would pass the cost/benefit analysis of a military. If OA were a regular 'soft' science franchise, that caveat wouldn't even be a problem. But since the OA is all about hard sci fi, you do have to pause somewhat. Not to be contrarian, but I find it somewhat unlikely that even mature energy weapons would be competitive with regular small arms. I honestly can't see the average soldier (whether they be human or not) a century or two from now carrying a laser into battle. Their strengths aren't enough to overcome their weaknesses, IMHO.

This paragraph raises multiple questions and sort of illustrates the point I'm about to make. Specifically:

You're making a lot of declarative sentences about things, and not explaining what you mean by them, which is muddying the waters and making it hard (if not impossible) to have a real discussion. In order to discuss your points and questions properly, we all first need to get 'on the same sheet of music' so we aren't talking past each other.

Back to your statements above:

a) Pass the cost/benefit analysis of the military - what do you mean by this? Are you claiming some level of knowledge of how military cost benefit analysis is conducted? What is the context for the analysis in question? What starting assumptions are you (or the hypothetical military people performing the analysis) making as part of this?

b) It being 'somewhat unlikely that even mature energy weapons would be competitive with regular small arms' - What is your reasoning that leads you to this conclusion? Define 'mature energy weapon' in this context. What is the basis for this conclusion? Do you bring actual knowledge of small arms to the discussion or is this just a 'gut feeling'?

c) You not being able to see a laser weapon being carried into battle a century or two from now - Ok, but why not? Please explain what leads you to this view.

d) Lasers strengths not being enough to overcome their weaknesses - What strengths and weaknesses are you referring to? We can't think about or respond to the statement effectively if we don't even know what you are talking about.

What I meant was that there are certain concepts that seem absurd at the time of their inception, but later turn out to become feasible. If you lived back in the 30s and thought up something like an optical disk, people of the time would say: 'Thats interesting and all, but how do you read information off the disk?' The idea would seem totally impractical because no one in the 30s had imagined lasers: They were an unknown unknown.

I see what you're saying here (I think), but as mentioned earlier, I think this is an area in which you can make a statement like this above, but rather by definition you can't go on to proactively provide specific examples. You could potentially speak in terms of desired or potential effects or end results, but part of the reason lasers and such were so unexpected was that they resulted from observations or effects that no one was planning on. Based on your defining concept (unknown unknowns) we would need new observations or unexpected observed effects to lead us to that kind of tech - at which point we've moved out of the realm of trying to imagine it and instead into the realm of reacting to those observed things.

So when I read articles written by engineers and scientists (usually the type who don't read sci fi!) claiming that certain classes of futuristic technology can't work, I have to wonder whether there is something they aren't taking into account. Maybe there is an 'enabler' device that no one has even conceived of yet?

This is somewhat of a horse-splice of a different color

OA used to do this a lot and still does this from time to time when someone is inspired to do so. What you're describing here is the process of trying to figure out how an imagined technology might actually work. OA has a fair number of these, with airwalls being an example that springs to mind. If you want hangerbays open to space with a forcefield of some kind holding in the air - you're probably out of luck (although back when Star Wars was new there were some articles on how this might be done - they pointed out lots of challenges). OTOH, if what you really want is a method of getting in/out of a spacecraft that works better than an airlock and works a lot like a force field to the end user - we can set you right up

Often the first step in doing this kind of thing is to look at what the desired end result is and work backwards toward achieving it instead of the other way round.

No offense, but that kindof feels like handwaving. Okay, energy weapons in the OA have been stated to be as reliable as anything else out there. But that doesn't make alot of sense, because great engineering (at the hands of expert systems or super brights) can only take your gadgets so far.

Fair enough - but please explain how you are determining how far that is and that this distance is cannot be 'traveled' by expert systems and superbrights and just ongoing improvements in the state of the art?

Again, you're making pretty firm declarative statements without providing any reasoning to back them up.

An automatic rifle can never be as reliable as a bolt action rifle, for instance.

Why not?

With certain exceptions, more advanced weapons require more moving parts, which have a higher chance of failure. The simple nature of a laser weapon makes it inherently more fragile and finicky than a projectile weapon. The lens can be cracked, obscured with dirt, etc, and these failure modes are more common than what a rifle would experience.

Please provide proof for these declarative statements. Not only regarding the current state of the art, but also demonstrating that it is physically impossible for laser weapons to ever be improved to the point that these issues can be made to go away. We generally prefer online references and journal articles whenever possible.

BTW solid-state lasers with no moving parts are already a thing.

I just don't see how it can be soldier proofed, even with future infrastructure.

Please define 'soldier proofed'. Also, what you mean by 'future infrastructure'.

Coming at this from another direction, are you asking us how such a device might work or stating it as equivalent to a law of physics that such a device can't be made?

For that matter, what is the context you are talking about? Are we talking about using such a weapon (or any energy weapon for that matter) in space? On the ground? Underwater? Etc. Some weapons can be tremendously effective in one environment, but not much good in another. So the desired operating environment needs to be specified.

For the most part, I agree. Human soldiers are already showing their limitations as fighters in the 21st century. In the mid term, though, I don't think they will be replaced by drones or robots en masse. That would be prohibitively expensive, militarily unwise, and change the nature of war in an undesirable way.

More declarative sentences and fuzzy definitions. How are you defining 'mid-term' and what reasoning or expertise are you bringing to these statements that should make the rest of us believe you?

Yes, I touched on this with Dfleymmes. But what I'd like to know is, what classes of weapon can be safely ignored for the purposes of OA? We know that phasers won't ever become a reality, since they require particles that don't exist and can't exist (for they defy the laws of physics). But would this be true of stuff like ion cannons, liquid bullets, etc? They aren't impossible per say, but are currently impractical due to things like electrical charge, air density, etc.

What is a phaser for purposes of this discussion? Yes, I know what they are in a general way in the context of Star Trek. But I (and probably many other people here) have no idea what you're talking about when you mention particles that don't/can't exist. Please unpack your statements like this or we can't really address them constructively.

Getting back to my earlier point above, are you talking about a literal phaser that works exactly the way they are described in fiction? Or a device that basically does the same thing but may operate on very different principles?

Terms like 'phaser' or 'disrupter' don't really mean anything in this context and so can't be taken at face value.

Again, we can't really consider something constructively until we are all on the same sheet of music.

I await your clarifications with interest

Todd