[fffobar]

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.

[closewith]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[ryanmarsh]

This. As a former infantryman the one thing that still strikes me with awe to this day is the destructive power of artillery. People cannot fathom what it’s capable of.

Go up in a tall building, maybe to the 20th floor or so. Eyeball a built up area 1km square. Now picture every structure reduced to rubble in an instant. Now imagine 10km square reduced to rubble in just a few minutes.

Quick work for an artillery battery.

[jcims]

Never experienced it myself but seeing those piles of shells from WWI just sends my brain to uninitialized memory.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/shells-creeping-bombardment...

[somerandomqaguy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvcdKGD-FM <-- What it's like be hit by 130mm artillery.

One thing that the video can't simulate is how loud those explosions are. You don't just hear the sound wave, even from a safe distance you feel the pressure wave in your entire body.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Reminds me of a day I was fishing from a pier at the beach some time ago. Older dude came up to me and started talking and got into his "time in 'Nam." He pointed at some apartment buildings across the bay, "we'd call in an airstrike and they'd make one pass and everything would be gone. Those buildings? You'd just see some bricks and rubble left behind." To 25 year-old me that was a pretty sobering thought.

[htfuuufhhuff]

That injury radius must be on land right? Like if it hits water how destructive could the splash be?

[closewith]

Gunners would use proximity fuzes to airburst above the target in this application. TBH 100 rounds is wildly conservative - I can't imagine a better target for artillery than a fragile and static solar array.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

What's the range? 15 miles?

I agree though. Solar on the battlefield doesn't make sense since it is not mobile and cannot be concealed or protected.

I do think the centralized nature of massive diesel generators and their fuel supply lines are a tactical weak point though. I like the idea of flexible distributed power grids for troops but I'm not sure solar fits the bill.

It would be cool to hear some input from generals and see some proof of concepts.

[closewith]

> What's the range? 15 miles?

For M30A2, 70km or ~43 miles.

[krisoft]

> 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.

[Consultant32452]

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.

[glitchc]

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.

[_wolfie_]

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]

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]

Sparkling sand (or anything else) over them would be enough to absolutely destroy their output

[ncmncm]

That would have hardly any effect. Soot would, though.

[lm28469]

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...

> 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%

[oneoff786]

Seabird feed laced with laxatives

[omega3]

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.

[lm28469]

> 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)

[Cthulhu_]

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

[leeoniya]

> 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?

[usrusr]

> 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]

EMPs are cheap to produce.

[hhr]

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

[t_mann]

> 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.

[politician]

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

[pengstrom]

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

[jalk]

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