Inspired by the commerce raid thread on COTI I decided to design both space
mines and a delivery system using FF&S.
The mines themselves are not very difficult. They will be at the sizes of
0.5DT and smaller.
The real challenge will be to design the delivery system. As I try to
prevent designing missiles, the mines will be without effective drives. They
may contain some compressed gass for station keeping and rotation of the
hull to point the laser rods towards any targets detected.
There is basically two ways to deliver the mines. Drop them directly from
the ship as you orbit the target planet. Fine if the planet is under your
control. Not so fine if this is a enemy planet. In this case you would like
to deliver the mines from afar.
Ordinary space missile launcher does not consume power, so I guess they only
are a enclosed rail system where the missile starts from using their
thrusters (EAPLAC or HePlar). As the mines does not have a drive, they need
some help with the launch. I tried to design a mass driver, but it became
quite massive. For a 0.2DT missile it ended up in the 300ton range (weight).
Any ideas how to make a reliable and good delivery system for inserting
mines from afar?
Roger Malmstein
"Sin lies in hurting other people unneccesary. Hurting yourself is not
sinful, just stupid."
- Robert A. Heinlein