Explaining Laser Weapons in Space Combat

Spacedock delves into the sciencey details of laser weaponry in science fiction space combat.

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Battlezone II Music by Carey Chico

Spacedock does not hold ownership of the copyrighted materiel (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review.

[Spacedock]

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[eridanusindustries]

Wow, never thought I would see our game NEBULOUS: Fleet Command in a Spacedock video, what a cool feeling. The clip you showed is actually of our anti-ship particle beams, but we do use traditional lasers for anti-missile point defense. Thanks for including us!

[ComradePhoenix]

Glad to see Children of a Dead Earth getting even a short bit of exposure on this channel.

[teck_]

Absolutely love the inclusion of Space Engineers clips. Fantastic game for scratching your creative star ship itch and then blowing up the result. Praise Lord Klang!

[battleoid]

I love seeing Legend of the Galactic Heroes getting more coverage, its such a fantastic sci fi show with a great setting, great characters, and a very well written plot. I mean hell, both sides of the war actually have competent leaders, which means more often than not, battles are very close affairs with both sides conducting well thought out strategies in order to gain just the tiniest advantage and turn the battle.

[adyne]

Ahh, can't believe two of my favourite space combat games, Nebulous and COADE, got featured at once in a Spacedock episode.
Today is a good day.

[still_guns]

Love that you used the Omega class destroyer for the thumbnail. One of my favourite starships.

[Myname-ilvd]

1:51 very glad to see L5resident(who made the ship model) and Theo Bouvier(who did the wonderful animation work) get some love! They have done some of the best space combat work ive ever seen

[FranksFilmEcke]

Great explanation of Lasers. Exactly like the post I did some time ago. Nailed it.
Also, i like the "Smoke Screen" Effect like it was used in Gundam. But not Gas, small foil and metal would do the trick for a short time.
Then depending on the Universe you can use it for maneuvering or dogging behind it and make the space fight more tactical.
Also you forgott the Option to Use a Laser to "Cook" an enemy Ship. The beam does not need to be focused. My Physic Prof told me Laser do heat transfer 2 to 1. So if you could cool two times more than your opponent. You can cook him in his tin can.

[saturnv]

One of the things that U.S Navy learned from actual lasers, namely the ODIN laser on Burke classes and LWSD on USS Portland, is that since laser required some precise aiming mechanism, you essentially designed a long range electro-optic precision tracking/targeting device.
Which is a surprisingly good substitute for radar since that is passive tracking from target EM emissions, while radar is active tracking by detect the reflecting radar waves. This way a warship could track the precise location of its target, without giving away its own location or even present.

[armedmage]

I'd love to see you make a video like this explaining ship boarding operations in space, the different methods of them and how effective/practical they'd realistically be.

[azuresentry]

One interesting take on tracking lasers from one of my fav writers is tracking them based on collisions with the particles that are out in the vacuum since space isn't 100% empty. Still doesn't let you see one that's coming for you but you are able to see the near misses. That series in general does a pretty decent job of portraying lasers in a realistic way.

[sethicus]

Nice legend of the Galactic Heroes opening

[lukasvillar]

Just look at It... Brünhild and Perceval are in my opinion the most beautiful and elegant ships ever designed.

And both uses reflective armor.

[Zippsterman]

Children of a Dead Earth is fantastic (a screen is seen at 1:30) and I recommend to anybody interested in realistic space combat. It was built from the ground up as a physics simulator, and all of the technology has already been demonstrated in real life. Wish there were more like it

[scavy]

Absolutely love the Legend of the Galactic Heroes OVA footage and would love if you folks went more in depth on that universe.

[austininflorida]

I have to say that this is one of my favorite series on YouTube. When you cover particle beams, I hope you touch on the laser-focused variety. Or perhaps don't, because I'm trying to write a book that uses them.

Edit: spelling

[DrownedInExile]

I see Babylon 5 Omega-Class Destroyer on thumbnail, instant like!

[Stone]

A common anti-laser defence in sci-fi media is also reflective dust, usually clouds of like smoke. Laser beams hit the reflective dust and is dispersed/scattered into a harmless area or maybe has it's wavelength scattered into less dangerous bands.

[StormSpotter]

One of the benefits of pulse lasers over continuous beam is that the plasma cloud released by explosive vaporization absorbs some of the laser energy, robbing it of it's efficiency as a weapon. Pulse lasers can strobe in such a way to let the plasma dissipate before pulsing again, making sure more energy makes it to the target and isn't wasted in the fireball.