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Reactor-Axe-Man β Alaska Spinal Mount 01
Published: 2011-04-11 01:24:50 +0000 UTC; Views: 13209; Favourites: 121; Downloads: 251
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Description
More work on my Alaska class battleship which shows off the spinal mount neutral particle beam cannon in the bow. The steering magnets and electron neutralizer can be seen surrounding the muzzle of the weapon. The steering magnets allow the heavy ion beam to be directed up to 15ΒΊ off axis prior to beam neutralization. The spinal mount particle cannon is a powerful weapon of deadly effect when it can actually hit a target. In practice, even with the limited steering capabilities of the beam, the Alaska must keep itself nearly bow-on to a maneuvering target. At close engagement ranges against smaller and more agile spacecraft, the weapon is almost useless. Fortunately for the Alaska, its heavy array of Class-IV primary and Class-II secondary laser turrets are more than capable of engaging such difficult targets.Modeled with SketchUp. Rendered with Kerkythea.
Starfield courtesy of
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Comments: 26
This is impressive and intimidating, the title alone makes you pause! Β
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this looks-like it could be a ship in itself!
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yeah drone docking engine
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Oh, it is. I called it Spinal Mount because that was what I was showing off. Previous iterations of the model didn't have one.
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An incredibly neat design-i like that you used "real" lasers instead of "hollywood" lasers- but I did notice one small flaw. Class II, in laser jargon, means that a laser is eye-safe - less than 1 microwatt of power.
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Thank you! I am not using the present day conventions for lasers when I use the term "class." I am using class to define classes of antiship lasers found on spacecraft. To elaborate:
Point Defense Lasers - Do not even rate a Class. We can call them Class 0 if we must.
Class I - typical level of armament for an armed civilian vessel. The primary weapon mount of most corvettes and small system defense boats, cutters, and other small military craft, and the secondary mounts of frigates and escorts.
Class II - The primary weapon mount for frigate and escort class warships and the secondary mounts of larger warships.
Class III - The primary weapon mount for cruiser class warships, rarely used as a secondary mount.
Class IV - The primary weapon mount for battleship class warships.
Class V - Sometimes found as a primary mount on battleship class warships, more commonly found on orbital military installations.
Each class features a larger diameter primary mirror than the class preceding it, which allows the beam to be of higher output without damaging the mirror and allows the beam to be focused at a much greater range for a given wavelength. Being Free Electron Lasers for the most part, antiship lasers can adjust their wavelengths as needed, but practical limitations imposed by material limits on the mirrors and the physics of lasers tend to dictate that antiship lasers operate in the violet to near-UV range around 400nm.
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A very neat design, but I did notice one small flaw- why would your secondary laser turrets be so low power? (Class II, in laser jargon, means less than 1millawatt overall energy).
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As time and inspiration strike, I will!
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Thanks!
There's still so much to do on it, though.
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Thanks for the comment and 
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First thing that came to mind was "Impressive". Second thing that came to mind was "Lacks catgirls, bunnygirls, and clownies."
Obviously this design is flawed. o_o
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They're internal - part of the MWR Department.
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Not in command of the bridge or at least a ship's battery? 9 volt, at least!
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Thats a great design, wouldnt want to be on the end of those cannons
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Thanks! Neither would I. The focusing mirrors on the three big arrays are 15 meters in diameter. The amount of beam power they could reflect without melting is staggering.
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Your designs never cease to amaze.
One question, though; I've been wondering for the longest time, what are those spotlight-looking dealies mounted around the hull?
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Oh! Those are the laser turrets. The lasers are Free Electron Lasers. Most of the actual laser machinery for them is deep inside the hull, and the laser light generated is piped up to the arrays, focused on the mirrors at the back of the turret spheres, and projected to the target. I realize that a lot of other people take a more traditional approach to their laser cannons, by making them look like cannons, but this is probably not how a real starship laser cannon would look. In the end, you're focusing coherent light on the thing you wish to destroy, and to do that at long range, you need a big adaptive optics mirror. The bigger the mirror, the farther you can effective focus the light.
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Yeah, that's what I like about your designs; cool and very much believable. Are they chemical lasers, or gas?
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They are Free Electron Lasers .
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Oh oops; forgot you said that.
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