More effective than something that has an infinitesimal chance of hitting doesn't help much.TrashMan wrote:The whole point of it is that the Loroi/Umiak wouldn't know what we're shooting at them.
Not super-effective? No..but still more effective than a regular mass driver shell.
That is a wildly inaccurate description of the universe. The universe is an extremely cold, quiet, and empty place: 2.7 K background, vast stretches of empty space with only a sparse scattering of solid objects...it is an exceptionally clean environment for sensors to operate in. We can track bits of cm-scale debris in orbit now, through an active atmosphere, without trying very hard. And though they'll almost certainly be quite hot from the mass driver, it's not any sort of "charge" that they'll be tracked by...such a launch will require them to be constructed in a way that'll also make them clearly visible on radar. But while the target is almost certainly capable of tracking the shots, they wouldn't need to...they need only adjust their trajectory a bit.TrashMan wrote:Disagree. That charge would dissipate almost instantly upon launch, and the universe is a very noisy place.
If you have sensors that can detect tiny chunks of metal in space, then you have GODLY sensor tech.
To make a wide debris cone requires propulsion that can achieve a good chunk of the velocity imparted by the mass driver itself, and to have any chance at a hit you need very high mass driver velocities. The faster the projectiles are fired, the narrower the debris cone will be or the more visible the projectiles' propulsion systems will be. The slower they are, the further the evasion maneuvers will take the target by the time they pass.TrashMan wrote:But this wouldn't be a regular mass driver shot. Would the enemy captain move far more than it's necessary to evade? Does he know the driver bullet is a MIRW warhead itself?
Outsider ships could literally turn around and outrun projectiles fired at them. Say a mass driver with a muzzle velocity of 100 km/s fires at a ship 16000 km away...point blank range in Outsider terms, 0.05 light seconds. They take a full 60 seconds to turn around and get their drives up to 30 g. A bit under 3 minutes later, the projectile has approached to within a couple thousand km and is now falling behind. They would only do this to show off...they could easily dodge the projectile by a wide margin by doing a much shorter burn at a perpendicular instead. Even a minor maneuver would take the target far out of any plausible debris cone, they simply have no reason to expose themselves to the risk.