I wonder if particles moving at the speed of light could harm something moving 3500 miles per hour?
Well l guess not that secretly if we are reading about it here.
It would be interesting to see a plausible “anything” with mass that could move at the speed of light. I’m interested in things that fly, so if you have a design for a warp drive, maybe we could get together..... ;-)
There are indeed people who put their trust in futuristic defensive laser technologies that have not yet been designed, tested and deployed to protect bygone era ships manned with thousands of young sailors.
Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) work by focusing energy including laser, microwave, or particle beams, on the target. Laser and microwave DEWs have been demonstrated to be very effective but deployment has been kept secret (as it should be). In general they work either by creating localized heating (think microwave oven) or by creating EMP-type disruption to onboard electronics that results in a loss of control and failure of the target.
There are countermeasures to be sure but the potential to stop a target with a weapon that shoots at the speed of light vs. lead is a no-brainer.
In sufficient quantity, and if they are coherent.
I understand there's a class of device that Amplifies Light by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation …
Perhaps that sort of thing could help you out.
They could -- IF you can detect it, switch your weapons to "active", and manage to get a targeting lock on the thing in time.
In the first few hours of a conflict, I'm thinking most CO's will not put their weapons on "automatic engage" until too late.