Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
Neutron bombs have extremely low area of effect, their radiation has less penetration than standard nuclear weapons...
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Nuclear blasts in space are extremely limited in effective radius, especially if the surface of the target has even light armor. Neutron bombs bypass that armor effectively, and therefore increase the effective radius of the warhead.
Whereas a small nuke might need to be within a few hundred meters to score a single-hit kill purely based on the thermal effects, the neutrinos and radiation would kill or sicken the crew if it goes off within kilometers of the target.
Considering the limited time to prepare, I'd recommend that everyone on the far side of the earth when the attack began should prepare literally every spaceflight capable rocket (from ICBMs to sounding rockets or even models) to launch simultaneously. As many of those as possible should be armed with nuclear warheads. As many of the armed missiles as is reasonably possible should have their re-entry shield replaced with graphite or other refractory materials, which will ablatively shield the missile.
Hopefully, the large scale of the wave will provide sacrificial targets that will take the initial brunt of the attack. The graphite will boil away, taking a great deal of energy with it. Hard to estimate how it will hold up to high-energy lasers (the spot size, pulse duration, wavelength, etc, etc, are unknown), but maybe it'll give you a chance.
This goes out the window with an alien ship, but still, people would give it a try.