# Laser weapons Vs Plasma weapons?



## Rojack79 (Dec 13, 2015)

Hello scientists of writing forums. I have a question. What are the pro's and con's of a laser based weapon vs a plasma based weapon?


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## RhythmOvPain (Dec 13, 2015)

Lasers tend to over heat.

Plasma tends to explode in your face.

Lasers cut through just about anything.

Plasma can blow up just about anything.

Hope this was of assistance to you.


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## JustRob (Dec 13, 2015)

Range must be a discriminator at least. Lasers emit light which just keeps on going straight until dispersed by any atmosphere whereas plasma is a hot substance which must be projected like a flame and hence has a relatively short range within which its direction is determinable. Being so hot it would tend to rise in the atmosphere, so probably couldn't be aimed over any significant distance. It might be more effective in the vacuum of space but still probably wouldn't stay in a tight beam like laser light. I'd guess that it would be primarily a high power short range weapon for causing substantial destruction whereas the laser would be more for long range precision sniping. The Northern Lights are the result of plasma from the sun being caught by the earth's magnetic field, for example. Too many things influence the path of plasma to make it an accurate projectile, I suspect.

I'm no scientist though, so others may well correct me on this.


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## aj47 (Dec 13, 2015)

Lasers are light; plasmas is substance.  I expect, because of this, that plasma weapons require more energy and need to be larger (like super-soakers vs water pistols).

Not a scientist, but a hard SF fan.


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## RhythmOvPain (Dec 13, 2015)

JustRob said:


> Range must be a discriminator at least. Lasers emit light which just keeps on going straight until dispersed by any atmosphere whereas plasma is a hot substance which must be projected like a flame and hence has a relatively short range within which its direction is determinable. Being so hot it would tend to rise in the atmosphere, so probably couldn't be aimed over any significant distance. It might be more effective in the vacuum of space but still probably wouldn't stay in a tight beam like laser light. I'd guess that it would be primarily a high power short range weapon for causing substantial destruction whereas the laser would be more for long range precision sniping. The Northern Lights are the result of plasma from the sun being caught by the earth's magnetic field, for example. Too many things influence the path of plasma to make it an accurate projectile, I suspect.
> 
> I'm no scientist though, so others may well correct me on this.



Most of that was actually correct.


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## Rojack79 (Dec 13, 2015)

Wow thanks everyone for the help. This will definitely help out a lot.


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## Winston (Dec 20, 2015)

Since plasma requires a gas, I would assume a plasma weapon to be much larger and heavier.  It would make sense for main battery type weapons to be plasma based, with smaller laser weapons as secondary weapons.  Examples might include vehicle mounted plasma guns and troop carried laser rifles.  Both require a lot of power though.  Infantry might burn through large amounts of power packs, like modern soldiers use ammo magazines.

BTW:  No love for KE / Mass Driver weapons?  Those are my faves.


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## JustRob (Dec 21, 2015)

Winston said:


> BTW:  No love for KE / Mass Driver weapons?  Those are my faves.



When I was a young boy I used to experiment with mass drivers, firing sewing needles across the room by putting them inside glass tubes through electromagnetic coils. I found it best to thread a short length of cotton through the eye of a needle to act as a flight to keep it on a straight course. I never contemplated scaling up the devices though.

I found electromagnetics a fascinating toy. I tried lifting a suitcase with an electromagnet and then loaded it with more and more books until it couldn't be lifted any more. I discovered that books had many uses but reading them wasn't always high on my list, not unless they were about electrical equipment.


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## RhythmOvPain (Dec 21, 2015)

JustRob said:


> When I was a young boy I used to experiment with mass drivers, firing sewing needles across the room by putting them inside glass tubes through electromagnetic coils. I found it best to thread a short length of cotton through the eye of a needle to act as a flight to keep it on a straight course. I never contemplated scaling up the devices though.
> 
> I found electromagnetics a fascinating toy. I tried lifting a suitcase with an electromagnet and then loaded it with more and more books until it couldn't be lifted any more. I discovered that books had many uses but reading them wasn't always high on my list, not unless they were about electrical equipment.



...

How old were you?


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## JustRob (Dec 21, 2015)

RhythmOvPain said:


> ...
> 
> How old were you?



Can't remember. I was still at primary school, so maybe somewhere around eight to ten. Electricity and electronics have fascinated me all my life, ever since an electrician gave me some offcuts of wire after installing some electrical stuff in our house when I was very young. I couldn't understand why a stranger would come to our house to spend hours in the cupboard under the stairs. Evidently this electricity was a weird thing to cause people to behave like that. Starting with those few wires, which I carefully stored away in a box, I now have tons of electronic equipment and miles of wire stored in every corner of our house. Yes, even in the cupboard under the stairs. I recently built some reinforced shelving in the loft to allow the collection to spread out more and give me a little more room to move. Maybe you understand why I refer to my wife as an angel, although she is such a keen gardener that she spends as much time out there as inside the house. She has also had a passion for her hobby from a very early age, having had her own greenhouse from a time when other girls might have had a wendy house.


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## Rojack79 (Dec 26, 2015)

Winston said:


> BTW:  No love for KE / Mass Driver weapons?  Those are my faves.



I love Railguns just as much as the next guy. But with my story being set 1 to 2 thousend years in the future i think we would upgrade our weapons from KE/ Mass driver technology. How ever i still have to take into acount that the earths inhabitants are still recovering from an apocalyptic event which whiped out 90% OF THE EARTHS GLOBAL POPULATION. P.S. MY CAPS LOCK ON MY PHONE IS STUCK ON.


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## JustRob (Dec 26, 2015)

I think railguns are yet another form of technology for projecting lumps of matter in a somewhat different fashion from mass drivers, one depending on the electrical characteristics of the projectile and the other on its magnetic properties. I believe that's the distinction anyway. With a KE projectile the projection system is actually optional. One can just drop a piano off the roof of a skyscraper. 

The old medieval technique was to put anything to hand in a trebuchet, the original mass driver, and hurl it at the opposition. In the case of sieges rotting carcases were favoured as ammunition. In the science fiction world I suppose a missile containing undesirable lower life-forms would be the equivalent.

By the way, did you know that boiling oil wasn't the preferred way of dealing with attackers at the castle gates? Before mineral oil was available oil was a precious commodity and once poured over attackers it would have been lost. The preferred missile was actually molten lead as once it had solidified it could be retrieved to be used again. Now molten lead must have been a really gruesome KE missile. Maybe in science fiction there's a limit to how much detail one wants to go into unless the battles are all fought by drones, which even now appears to be the future of warfare.


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## Rojack79 (Dec 26, 2015)

JustRob said:


> I think railguns are yet another form of technology for projecting lumps of matter in a somewhat different fashion from mass drivers, one depending on the electrical characteristics of the projectile and the other on its magnetic properties. I believe that's the distinction anyway. With a KE projectile the projection system is actually optional. One can just drop a piano off the roof of a skyscraper.
> 
> The old medieval technique was to put anything to hand in a trebuchet, the original mass driver, and hurl it at the opposition. In the case of sieges rotting carcases were favoured as ammunition. In the science fiction world I suppose a missile containing undesirable lower life-forms would be the equivalent.
> 
> By the way, did you know that boiling oil wasn't the preferred way of dealing with attackers at the castle gates? Before mineral oil was available oil was a precious commodity and once poured over attackers it would have been lost. The preferred missile was actually molten lead as once it had solidified it could be retrieved to be used again. Now molten lead must have been a really gruesome KE missile. Maybe in science fiction there's a limit to how much detail one wants to go into unless the battles are all fought by drones, which even now appears to be the future of warfare.



wow I never knew they used molten lead. Haha that just gave me an idea. Funny thing is that with the timeline i've created for the book after the apocalyps happens the earth is sent back to a bronze age like setting. When the MC wakes up the world is in the medieval renassonce time period. So the idea is that the people of this setting are fighting robots and mutants so in order to take them both out without wasting to many resources they use thurmite bombs which in thery would work just as well as molten lead did way back when.


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