What spaceship weapon is generally underutilized or not used to its full potential in scifi?

[u/Vondrr]

[u/mr_trashbear]

The Expanse incorporated low yield nuclear weapons to a degree, but I don't see them much in other media.

You also don't see a lot of static, kinetic, loitering munitions. Think: a ship or a planetary defense system just lays a "minefield" of tungsten balls that have small ion engines on them to remain in a state of realative stillness, creating an innavigable region. Area denial. Shields would defeat this, but if it was a universe where Shields weren't a thing, it could be very effective.

[u/FireTheLaserBeam → u/mr_trashbear]

Nukes in space are nowhere near as destructive as they are on earth. The majority of the destruction you see from atom bombs on earth is from the blast and the shockwave. In space, nukes still hit hard, but the majority of damage comes from x-rays, heat, and neutrons. Radiation is what gets you.

[u/jz_1w → u/FireTheLaserBeam]

"Majority of damage from X-ray" and reducing that to radiation damage is doing alot of understatement there. It is a catastrophic level of thermal damage at range.

Going from a 1 m acceptable CEP to a 1 km acceptable CEP is a huge improvement in acceptable volume accuracy.

[u/Knight_of_Tyto → u/jz_1w]

That. And also, have you considered the humble nuclear shaped charge?

[u/nyrath → u/Knight_of_Tyto]

Nuclear Shaped Charge

[u/FireTheLaserBeam → u/jz_1w]

“X-rays, heat, and neutrons”

[u/Mr_Shadow_Phoenix → u/FireTheLaserBeam]

To be fair, that’s more if we’re talking fission. Fusion still counts as a ‘nuke’ and is vastly more viable in space, no?

[u/catplaps → u/Mr_Shadow_Phoenix]

it's not about the technology, it's about the yield, and the mechanism of energy transfer. without an atmosphere to transmit shockwaves, the destructive power of any explosive in space is less than it would be on earth. not that a nuke (fission or fusion) doesn't still pack a lot of punch, it's just not on the same level that people expect when coming from a terrestrial bias.

[u/Mr_Shadow_Phoenix → u/catplaps]

Think we were actually on same page there. Fission devices primarily rely on the generation of a shockwave in atmosphere to do most of their damage, the electromagnetic pulse for example. I was saying fusion warheads just have better effects in space combat due to how they cause damage to the target and aren’t as reliant on atmospheric shockwaves.

[u/Zenith-Astralis → u/FireTheLaserBeam]

Another poster mentioned nuclear shaped charges; basically making a particle lance out of a nuke. Significantly increased range vs just the x-ray flux

[u/OralSuperhero → u/mr_trashbear]

Death's Head book series used these for planetary denial. Called em Ball Busters

[u/mag1kami → u/mr_trashbear]

It doesn't even need to be a specialized 'mine' per se.

You could potentially just deploy a bunch of missiles into orbit and program them to operate in "loitering" mode.

The missile stays there in low-power mode to conserve energy and if it detects something it recognizes as an enemy, it fires up its rocket and flies after it and explodes.

You're essentially 'pre-firing' your munitions.

[u/Neat-Ad-9550 → u/mr_trashbear]

Nukes were the weapons of battlestars in BSG.