yeah nukes have small effect, unless they will use nuclear energy in cumulative rounds...

There are some problems with the acceleration tactic. Detection range in space is extremely long, nukes have relatively small blast effects in space, and if g-forces are such a problem that the saucers have to fight like airborn fighters in space then they may not be able to accelerate hard enough to avoid long range fire in the first place. Also, if they get within conventional fighter range it will actually make them far easier targets by reducing the time to target for projectiles to travel, reducing the chances of missing.

You have some good points, but there is one other factor to consider. Kinetic energy. In a spaceship traveling 20,000 mph, if you fire a 20 mm cannon at a ship approaching at the same speed, that shell would have almost 130 megajoules of energy per kilogram. In comparison, a 125 mm shell has 1.4 megajoules when fired on Earth.

That suggests some very interesting tactics. For example, accelerating to top speed to close the distance before the enemy can use long range nuclear missiles, then slow down to fight at speeds comparable to a modern jet fighter to avoid G forces squashing people to jelly or getting shredded by debris from destroyed spacecraft, which would keep whatever was the original velocity and kinetic energy.

The British pioneered the use of ceramics with Chobham armor for their tanks, a secret combination of ceramics and alloys. To this day, only the British Challenger and the American M1Abrams are known to use ceramic armor. It is considered the strongest tank armor in existence and has a reputation of taking multiple hits well. However, MajorD is right about the way ceramic armor cracks. That is why on modern tanks the tiles are fixed to a backplate, put under compression, and generally used as filler between inner and outer metal walls, in a sort of metal and ceramic sandwich.

The ceramic will still shatter even with a sticky backing. Material not touching the sticky back will fall off due to parallel shattering. Even if fractures don't happen parallel to the plane of the hull, thanks to perpendicular cracking the ability to spread and slow the force of projectiles will be lost within a certain radius of impact. A single impact can completely compromise thermal protection of a single tile even if it may not eliminate its ability to stop a few more bullets. The concept of covering the saucers in ceramic is none the less a very interesting and worthwhile concept.

Even with their seemingly reactionless engines, the trailer shows them boosting with rockets, indicating a lack of acceleration in early models. They may find aerobreaking in Earth's atmosphere to be a good way to lose velocity, requiring tiled or ceramic covered hulls as you proposed.

We've already seen that they stuck with WWII designs for their weapons, and it makes sense. Making a new weapon would be difficult in their situation and they expect to fight on Earth. Also, a modern fire arm if properly prepared, by removing all liquid lubricants, can be fired in vacuum if done slowly in order to avoid barrel overheating. A specialized space gun might have radiator fins, or heat exchangers, or use a revolver chamber, but the Moon Nazis don't really need anything like that, even if it would be interesting.

the devil's in the details; therefore, the devil is funny - thumb up!

Thumb up. It's details like these that makes geeks like me all tingly.

The thought of reactive armor had crossed my mind more than once and I think it was mentioned in one of the sections talking about types of armor. It would make sense that earth armies in particular would use reactive armor. For example, it's a feature of the M1 Abrams tank. I think exploring examples of reactive armor and sloped armor are very good ideas.

Bwahahahahahaha lovely Roy!

And yes Mark, I try to think of such things very often. Since I as a 3D artist is bound to create surroundings. I've had a lot of discussions on the subject and I belong to those who prefer realism, even though it's hard to achieve.

is the bellow comment supposed to teach kids
that knowing is less than half the battle?

Ok, just loving these comments so much i have just had a breakfast break through!!

We have a scene in space when ships are flying all over the place, ships explode, bright flashes and loud noises rattle in and around our "Main" space ship. Organised chaos inside as orders are shouted and equipment shorts or frazzles (you get the idea i know!).

Cut to a harrased commander who is being told by an even more harrased officious weapons officer saying to him "that the "X5- 422 Missle" has lost its degravity shield and its argon based pro fuel sytem is leaking and it wont have enough power, and that as stated under newtons third law it requires a higher cotangent basis for it to destroy the oncoming enemy craft!"

To which the straight faced commander replies "Just fire the F*cking Missile and we,ll do the physics exam when we get back!".

:-)

On a certain level, your cinematography teacher is correct. It reflects an argument at least a century old, the classic tension between realism vs. authenticity or realism vs. verisimilitude. All you need at a minimum is enough plausible reality for the viewers to suspend their disbelief. The problem is, there has been a constant trend toward increased realism in both games and movies which matches increased audience sophistication.

Historical accuracy is hard to get right, but worth the effort. I always point to “Last of the Mohicans”, “A Very Long Engagement”, and “Dangeous Liasons” as examples of nearly perfect costuming and set design in a historical movie. It was done so well you didn't notice it. Realism in a science fiction or fantasy movie isn't just about getting the science or the magical rules right, it's about creating worlds that are lived in, inhabited, and logically consistent. You have to get the small details right and weave it all together into a coherent whole.

Indeed, my cinematology-teacher always used to say that movies(and games) aren't supposed to be realistic.

So yes, I can agree that a compromise can be met on the sciencepart, but when it comes to history and such I feel that one should stick to reality. The people that I know have heard of this production are all game nerds with an interest in WW2. They will be disappointed if it is idiologically inaccurat and such, but probably wont care if some simulation doesn't obey newtons third law completely or simila.

is this *another* truth today op-ed?

;)

Actually, Gauss guns and coil guns are the same thing, but both are completely different from rails guns. They produce their magnetic fields in completely different ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun

Missiles could work, but they would have to be giants bigger than Russian anti-ship missiles. It's because a ship is going to have lots more fuel and probably better thrust, so you need lots of fuel in a missile to keep up with the ship's maneuvers. The saucers don't even use reaction mass, so they may have a huge advantage when it comes to evasive maneuvers.

I'm also glad you decided to go with railguns. (Railguns, gauss guns, and coilguns are the same technology implemented in different ways.) I feel those are more plausible for the reasons outlined by MajorD, but also because the designs without guided munitions would be simpler, more direct. The military mind has two sides: the part that loves technological toys and the part that lives on the battlefield and knows that simplicity wins every time. (If you get the chance, read the short story "Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke.)

Railguns and gauss guns (which are the same as coilguns) have about the same muzzle velocity so to be honest there would be little to distinguish them apart other than the types of projectiles and manner in which they accelerate the shell. The experimental railguns I've seen use 2 to 4 kg shells although if you have enough power there should be no limit to the size of the shell.

I should note that the Germans in WWII invented the air-to-air missile, the wire guided missile, and the air-to-ship missile. The last was successfully used to sink an Italian battleship. Now that I think about it, if you can guide the hyperkinetic munitions, why bother with missiles? A missile would have longer range, but would not be as fast a projectile from a railgun.

As it happens, the U.S. Air Force and Navy do plan to have airborne and shipborne lasers deployed by 2018. The Army hopes to have truck mounted lasers in the 150 kw range out in the field by 2012.

I'm glad you're using rail guns, realistically coils guns would be too complicated. More so for the Nazis who shouldn't be able to have as wide spread a technological base. However, rail guns have plenty of issues of their own.

Not only would the Nazi rail guns not have the aid of computers as advanced as Earth's, but with a small population base, their industry has to be less diverse. That will narrow and slow the number of technologies they can research. While they may have rail guns, those rail guns may wear out faster, have less peak velocity, be larger, be heavier, charge slower, and so on.

The ammunition needing terminal guidance from a ship might depend on the size of the ammunition. Current kinetic kill vehicles are 63 kg (140 lb), is 140 cm (55 in) long and about 60 cm (24 in) in diameter. A much smaller one should be possible. Although, it would carry less fuel, that might be made up for by the launch platform's ability to better direct the round before launch through the use of predictive gunnery. The ability to correct trajectory mid-flight is a tremendous effective range extender not to be underestimated. While dumb rounds for close in combat will be useful, as will programmable smart rounds against soft targets, they can't be as effective as a round that can correct course. So, I for one want to see guided rounds, not missiles, but something like the kinetic kill round which can slide perpendicular to the target. Or, a round like AHEAD, which is programmed with range and detonation information as it leaves the muzzle break of the gun.

The AHEAD round is fired by the Oerlikon 35mm Millennium gun.
http://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/index.php?lang=3&fid=2450
But, as I mentioned, it's really for soft targets, such as missiles, and I doubt the Moon Nazis will use missiles, and I'm betting on the saucers being tank tough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ogwfPrV1fk&feature=related

By 2018, we should also have effective lasers, so we should see them as well. But, they should be presented realistically, with no visible beam unless it passes through a debris, gas, or other particle cloud, and should cause explosive damage on targets given enough power. Or, it should look like a cutting torch being put to work on the enemy hull.

Just in case you didn't know about it, the newest version of the US Navy rail gun was shown in a video. It's a lot smaller than the test version with the same bore diameter. I guess it could be nothing more than a mock up, rather than the next version, but it still shows where they expect to be in the near future.
http://defensetech.org/2010/05/05/killer-drone-builder-general-atomics-builds-killer-electromagnetic-rail-cannon/

I think I talked about it in another post, but the kinetic energy of a coilgun would be fierce. For the sake of comparison, the kinetic energy of a 125mm cannon shell is about 1.4 megajoules per kilogram. The tungsten core slug fired from an experimental railgun has about 4.5 megajoules per kilogram of kinetic energy because it's moving at 7000 mph. That works out to the explosive force of a hectogram of TNT for each kilogram of the slug. Combine that with a shaped charge which would multiply the effect on armor and you have a devastating weapon in anyone's book.

So you could either use the coilgun to fire smaller, lighter shells to get a high rate of fire (imagine a rifle that hits like a 20mm cannon) or go for mass and pulverize your target. Either way, the effect of hyper velocities shouldn't be discounted.

Since it looks like the Moon Nazi saucers will use coil guns, explosive rounds may not be worth while since they'll be able to kick their rounds up to very high velocities. Then again, if the coil gun is only as good as a normal gun, but used to exploit better power generation, then explosive rounds may be used after all.

It really does look like a fluid simulation approach could be rather interesting. Especially since in space, surface tension would be much stronger and the debris would act even more like a very thick fluid..
Add in the higher velocity of projectiles in space, the temperature created by the impact energy should be higher as well, therefor softening the metal further..

What's good about this is you can both see that the impacts are rather fluid like and it shows how different types of damage can be formed. For instance, you can see the soft lead rounds create flower like peddles, so with a hard enough bullet you would get radial gouges you can see in at least one of the other shot's images.

At this framerate it looks like water impact at slower speed.

Wow really awesome clips!!! And appropriately enough, they were shot by Germans ;P

Incredible how they got that footage, especially those little drops hitting the bullet in mid-flight... This stuff is solid gold as VFX reference!

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1380/540941889_ff1add2966.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3004/2602193858_f840615944.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3023/2473835760_7b67396d51.jpg

Awesome video, but it was posted some 10 weeks ago (scroll down a bit):
http://www.wreckamovie.com/shots/show/5469