5 ms·

I wonder if this could have a military purpose as well, as in whether this could be used in a combat area. Any of the other types of electrical power generation

I wonder if this could have a military purpose as well, as in whether this could be used in a combat area. Any of the other types of electrical power generation systems are very "centralized", as in there is only a few points where just a few hundred kg of hexagon delivered by a precision missile that slips past air defense would easily terminate the power production. On the other hand, a mesh of solar panels deployed over a larger body of water is a pretty difficult target to destroy. Imagine that it is floating over a 1km by 1km (or even 1 mile by 1 mile) area - what are you going to use against it? Unguided artillery? Would take a huge amount of shells, even though they're cheap it's probably infeasible. The same with unguided air-dropped bombs. Guided munition? Even worse than the unguided stuff, no high value targets to hit. The only way to defeat such a meshed power plant would be a small nuclear bomb. (the above assumes that there's no single energy collection point, of course, otherwise that place would be targetted) The other upside is that there is no need to supply oil, which is currently the preferred way of delivering energy to the combat area. The downside is the time it would take to deploy such a mesh, a diesel generator works pretty much instantly.

_wolfie_ 4y ago
I have no idea how fragile solar panels are, but wouldn't cluster bombs or possibly thermobaric weaponry work reasonably well against large surface areas like this?
- Retric 4y ago
  US Army strategy often assumes air superiority by US forces. Mortars are simply a more likely risk than cluster bombs. Further it’s fuel rather than generators that’s a problem, it’s bulky, flammable, and finite.
- lm28469 4y ago
  Sparkling sand (or anything else) over them would be enough to absolutely destroy their output
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    That would have hardly any effect. Soot would, though.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      I doubt it would have "hardly any effect" tbh, naturally occurring dust/sand is already a big issue: https://jrenewables.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40807-017-0043-y https://jrenewables.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40807... > In desert area, the accumulation of dust on PV panel surface is very high. The reduction in solar efficiency due to dust on PV panel is approximately 40%
glitchc 4y ago
The weakness isn’t the array itself but the cable(s) transporting the energy to where it needs to be consumed. Cut the cable and the array is just more debris floating in the ocean.
hhr 4y ago
Out of top of my head this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOS-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOS-1) can destroy such target.
closewith 4y ago
With respect, an M777 battery could saturate a grid square in minutes. The expected injury radius of a 155mm is ~150m, so conservatively 100 rounds would blanket a 1km*1km array. A six gun battery can fire ~36 rounds per minute comfortably. 100 rounds could be fire and the battery could be packing up before the first one hit.
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  Yeah, people drastically underestimate the raw firepower of artillery. The M270 is called "the grid square removal system" for a reason. (Grid square refers to 1km x 1km area.)
  - chipsa 4y ago
    We no longer have the M26 rockets used in grid square removal. They've all been decommissioned in favor of M30/M31 GMLRS guided rockets, which don't have submunitions. Oddly, "grid square removal system" is actually a backronym, as the original designation of the M270 was General Support Rocket System (GSRS)
    - closewith 4y ago
      That's largely due to the general move away from cluster munitions. There's still plenty of the M30 series, whose 160,000 preformed tungsten fragments would be an ideal weapon for use against a fragile and static solar array.
      - chipsa 4y ago
        As a note: the US Military isn't going away from cluster munitions because we don't want to leave UXO for civilians to accidentally blow themselves up with, but rather because we don't want to leave UXO for US military to accidentally blow themselves up with. If we drop 12x M26 missiles on a grid square, then that's something like 7.7k submunitions. With a 14% dud rate, that's 1k submunitions somewhere waiting for us to roll over them.
  - deleted 4y ago
pengstrom 4y ago
Is it not more efficient for the larger ships to over provision on nuclear?
- jalk 4y ago
  Deploying the panels at sea, dragging them behind a warship, seems to be quite a challenge compared to deploying in a “pond” of calm water
krisoft 4y ago
> Imagine that it is floating over a 1km by 1km (or even 1 mile by 1 mile) area - what are you going to use against it? Shrapnel generating warhead 100 meter over the solar field. Good luck finding and bypassing all the damage and short circuits. Or send the precision missile to where the cable lands. > the above assumes that there's no single energy collection point, of course Probably not a literal single point, but I would assume any solar field would have a relatively low number of shore connections.
lm28469 4y ago
> Imagine that it is floating over a 1km by 1km (or even 1 mile by 1 mile) area - what are you going to use against it? Same way you render a nuclear power-plant useless, cut the cable(s)
usrusr 4y ago
> The only way to defeat such a meshed power plant would be a small nuclear bomb. Unless actively defended: set collision course. If you suspect that it might be a tie, set collision course on an unmanned confiscated civilian vessel.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  EMPs are cheap to produce.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I'm not convinced that a solar array / electricity production would be the prioritised target if they were in range.
oneoff786 4y ago
Seabird feed laced with laxatives
leeoniya 4y ago
> Imagine that it is floating over a 1km by 1km (or even 1 mile by 1 mile) area - what are you going to use against it? an EMP?
t_mann 4y ago
> The only way to defeat such a meshed power plant would be a small nuclear bomb. Or to quietly cut off the underwater power cable.
omega3 4y ago
People are mentioning thermobaric weapons, small nuclear bombs where in fact a couple of bog standard 155m shells with proximity fuses would render something like this inoperational. Alternatively send out a single CAS like A10.
politician 4y ago
The power cabling connecting the array to the shore seems like a nice spot to target.
Consultant32452 4y ago
Almost certainly usable by the military, but not the way most people in the thread are responding. The military does a lot of humanitarian aid and rebuilding type work outside of war zones. If this solar array can be quickly and easily deployed off a boat and then you just drag a cable on shore to power a local town that could be very useful compared to having generators and having to ship diesel constantly. Massive Earthquake knocks out the infrastructure in Haiti? Just send the solar boat and, even without batteries, you have a daytime power plant set up in a day. I wonder how much power storage you could get with a hand full of tractor trailer/shipping container sized batteries.

_wolfie_ 4y ago

I have no idea how fragile solar panels are, but wouldn't cluster bombs or possibly thermobaric weaponry work reasonably well against large surface areas like this?

Retric 4y ago
US Army strategy often assumes air superiority by US forces. Mortars are simply a more likely risk than cluster bombs. Further it’s fuel rather than generators that’s a problem, it’s bulky, flammable, and finite.
lm28469 4y ago
Sparkling sand (or anything else) over them would be enough to absolutely destroy their output
- ncmncm 4y ago
  That would have hardly any effect. Soot would, though.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    I doubt it would have "hardly any effect" tbh, naturally occurring dust/sand is already a big issue: https://jrenewables.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40807-017-0043-y https://jrenewables.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40807... > In desert area, the accumulation of dust on PV panel surface is very high. The reduction in solar efficiency due to dust on PV panel is approximately 40%

glitchc 4y ago

The weakness isn’t the array itself but the cable(s) transporting the energy to where it needs to be consumed. Cut the cable and the array is just more debris floating in the ocean.

hhr 4y ago

Out of top of my head this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOS-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOS-1) can destroy such target.

closewith 4y ago

With respect, an M777 battery could saturate a grid square in minutes. The expected injury radius of a 155mm is ~150m, so conservatively 100 rounds would blanket a 1km*1km array. A six gun battery can fire ~36 rounds per minute comfortably. 100 rounds could be fire and the battery could be packing up before the first one hit.

Tuna-Fish 4y ago
Yeah, people drastically underestimate the raw firepower of artillery. The M270 is called "the grid square removal system" for a reason. (Grid square refers to 1km x 1km area.)
- chipsa 4y ago
  We no longer have the M26 rockets used in grid square removal. They've all been decommissioned in favor of M30/M31 GMLRS guided rockets, which don't have submunitions. Oddly, "grid square removal system" is actually a backronym, as the original designation of the M270 was General Support Rocket System (GSRS)
  - closewith 4y ago
    That's largely due to the general move away from cluster munitions. There's still plenty of the M30 series, whose 160,000 preformed tungsten fragments would be an ideal weapon for use against a fragile and static solar array.
    - chipsa 4y ago
      As a note: the US Military isn't going away from cluster munitions because we don't want to leave UXO for civilians to accidentally blow themselves up with, but rather because we don't want to leave UXO for US military to accidentally blow themselves up with. If we drop 12x M26 missiles on a grid square, then that's something like 7.7k submunitions. With a 14% dud rate, that's 1k submunitions somewhere waiting for us to roll over them.
- deleted 4y ago

pengstrom 4y ago

Is it not more efficient for the larger ships to over provision on nuclear?

jalk 4y ago
Deploying the panels at sea, dragging them behind a warship, seems to be quite a challenge compared to deploying in a “pond” of calm water

krisoft 4y ago

> Imagine that it is floating over a 1km by 1km (or even 1 mile by 1 mile) area - what are you going to use against it? Shrapnel generating warhead 100 meter over the solar field. Good luck finding and bypassing all the damage and short circuits. Or send the precision missile to where the cable lands. > the above assumes that there's no single energy collection point, of course Probably not a literal single point, but I would assume any solar field would have a relatively low number of shore connections.

lm28469 4y ago

> Imagine that it is floating over a 1km by 1km (or even 1 mile by 1 mile) area - what are you going to use against it? Same way you render a nuclear power-plant useless, cut the cable(s)

usrusr 4y ago

> The only way to defeat such a meshed power plant would be a small nuclear bomb. Unless actively defended: set collision course. If you suspect that it might be a tie, set collision course on an unmanned confiscated civilian vessel.

ncmncm 4y ago
EMPs are cheap to produce.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

I'm not convinced that a solar array / electricity production would be the prioritised target if they were in range.

oneoff786 4y ago

Seabird feed laced with laxatives

leeoniya 4y ago

> Imagine that it is floating over a 1km by 1km (or even 1 mile by 1 mile) area - what are you going to use against it? an EMP?

t_mann 4y ago

> The only way to defeat such a meshed power plant would be a small nuclear bomb. Or to quietly cut off the underwater power cable.

omega3 4y ago

People are mentioning thermobaric weapons, small nuclear bombs where in fact a couple of bog standard 155m shells with proximity fuses would render something like this inoperational. Alternatively send out a single CAS like A10.

politician 4y ago

The power cabling connecting the array to the shore seems like a nice spot to target.

Consultant32452 4y ago

Almost certainly usable by the military, but not the way most people in the thread are responding. The military does a lot of humanitarian aid and rebuilding type work outside of war zones. If this solar array can be quickly and easily deployed off a boat and then you just drag a cable on shore to power a local town that could be very useful compared to having generators and having to ship diesel constantly. Massive Earthquake knocks out the infrastructure in Haiti? Just send the solar boat and, even without batteries, you have a daytime power plant set up in a day. I wonder how much power storage you could get with a hand full of tractor trailer/shipping container sized batteries.