[phreak]

1kg of antimatter = 57MT explosion.  don't remember where i saw it, but it was here somewhere

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by aldo_14


[q]GTM - N1 HARBINGER
Fusion bomb surrounded by 3 salted fission bombs; [/q]

Go look up exactly what a salted fission bomb is designed to do - the GTA are arseholes...

EDIT - A rsehole is censored? FFS...

[karajorma]

1 Kilo of antimatter (plus 1 kilo of matter) would equal a 43 Megaton H-Bomb. I worked that out somewhere on the board but I'll be buggered if I can find it

[Ghost]

It's still antimatter, Strat, so pretty much any ship it comes in contact with is screwed.

EDIT: that is.. that's how it would work in the real world.

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Black Wolf


Go look up exactly what a salted fission bomb is designed to do - the GTA are arseholes...

Meant to limit the spread of radioactive fallout?




In a weapon? Against Shivans? In Space?!

[Carl]

Originally posted by Ghost
That, and the Helios is an antimatter weapon. Straight up antimatter does ridiculous amounts of damage... That's what I thought was too unrealistic... It didn't do enough damage.

but you can only put a little bit of animatter in a bomb, otherwise the magnetic field wouldn't be able to hold it, and it would touch the sides, destroying it prematurely. 5000 megatons = 116+ kilograms, which is much more than you'd expect it to be able to hold.

Originally posted by StratComm
The raw energy discharge from a few grams of AM isn't that much more than a few gigatons IIRC.

The raw energy discharge from a few grams of AM isn't that much more than a few kilotons.

Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.
But in order to achieve double the effect of 5GT, wouldn't it still need a far higher yield then 11GT

err...no, gigatons is the affect. 11GT is more than twice the affect of 5GT. basic math.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Raa


Meant to limit the spread of radioactive fallout?

Read again. A salted bomb is meant to maximize radioactive fallout over the longest time. And the GTA were originally dropping these things on cities. Hence, arseholes.

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Black Wolf


Read again. A salted bomb is meant to maximize radioactive fallout over the longest time. And the GTA were originally dropping these things on cities. Hence, arseholes.

Ahh. I skimmed through the first article I found, and it claimed it wsa to limit the spread of fallout. Must have been false info

[StratComm]

Originally posted by Ghost
It's still antimatter, Strat, so pretty much any ship it comes in contact with is screwed.

EDIT: that is.. that's how it would work in the real world.

No, that's how it works in Sci-fi.  It anihilates whatever it comes into contact with, yes.  But when you consider the fact that the antimatter itself is a very low mass relative to the bomb that's housing it, much less the entire ship it's hitting, the cumulative effect of the anhilation of a few kilograms of surface plating on an armored warship isn't catastrophic.

@kara: I stand corrected.  I forget that more than just matter->energy is responsible for the energy output of fusion.  Yes, kilograms of antimatter are needed for a suitably sized explosion.

But as I said earlier (and I was correct in this) an antimatter explosion isn't even that powerful.  The vast majority of energy liberated in an anhilation event comes out in the form of Gamma radiation, which while harmful to organic life is completely benign to structures.  And since deep-space hulls will be designed with radiation shielding in mind, the effects are significantly reduced.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Incidentally, this partly answers RE: 5 gt limit

[q]GTM - N1 HARBINGER
Fusion bomb surrounded by 3 salted fission bombs; propulsion unit is a half-size version of a regulation GTA fighter thruster (Class II); given the weight of the payloads, the missile is slow despite the power of the thruster; as the Harbinger is exceptionally large, GTA fighters and bombers are limited to carrying 2 of these weapons at any given time; the resultant shock wave from this weapon is potentially deadly, due to the size of the payloads (5000 Mt in total); use near allied installations or allied ship groupings is strongly discouraged by the GTA; most effective when used in preemptive defensive strike against non-military installations.
[/q]

No, it doesn't answer at all. 5000Mt Total for the Fusion+3 Fission Bombs. Thus, 1 Harbinger (Combo of 4 Bombs)=5 Gigatons.

err...no, gigatons is the affect. 11GT is more than twice the affect of 5GT. basic math

What are you talking about? The effect of an 11 Gt explosive is not twice the effect of a 5 Gt Explosive.

[StratComm]

There's a major difference between the blast radius and the damage incurred though.  Strictly speaking, in space (without that all-important medium to carry the shockwave) 11GT isprecisely 120% (2.2 times) as damaging as 5GT.  However, remember that (without even counting the effects of air) the energy density of a shockwave falls off with a rate proportional to the inverse square of the distance from the origin, not linearly, and so a 11GT bomb will produce, without considering other factors, a shockwave only about 1.4 times as large and powerful as a 5GT one.  It would take roughly 20GT to produce a blast with twice the radius.  However, as I previously stated, this does not apply in a vacuum.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Ah, I see.

...I think...

...

...no, not really. But I think I'll take your word for it until someone proves otherwise

[Nuke]

nukes are measured by there equivelent damage output of tonnes of tnt. unfortunately tnt would respond differently in space than it would in an atmosphere. so if you were to put a nuke on the ground and detonate it, two things would happen, a crater would be created, and a shockwave would be produced. the crater isnt created by the shockwave, but rather the vaporization of the material in the ground. in space the cratering effect would be the only thing formed.

when you detonate a nuke you are essentially creating solar equivelent tempuratures which no existing or theoretical material can withstand. so you could calculate (and il let you do that cause i suck at math) the thermal output and falloff of the bomb and compair that to the meltingpoint of the armor material. then you can locate the point of radius at which the the thermal output of the bomb can no longer melt the armor plate and that would be the effective radius of the bomb.

now if that is big enough to completely penetrate through the bulkhead armor all that vaporised metal would first be blasted through the internal structures and coridors of the ship in the same manor an antitank shell works (but on a much larger scale) essentially killing the crew in those areas of the ship and flooding the interior with radioactive contamination. then of course you have there problem of decompression which would quicly flush most of the radioactive liquid metal back into space. decompression saftey measures would seal off the section of damage. mind you the blast wouls screw up of saftey systems, of contamination doors would be blown before belast is defeated. so it would render a sizable portion of the ship interior an uninhabitable death trap.

of of course it doesnt melt through then you would just have a crater in your armor and the ship is really unharmed. ships would have weak points that could be exploited (vents, rcs thrusters, unpowered engine ports, airlocks, turret wells, fighterbays, ect). but i suspect you would kill the crew with the bombs long before the hull would crack.

[Flipside]

What about Shear force? Surely the shearing in the superstructure caused by such a blast would do far more internal damage, also, how come when a ship is hit at the front, it doesn't start spinning at about 400 revs per minute? Or at least, when it does, it's a bug

[karajorma]

Cause being hit by a large number of gamma rays would have very little kinetic effect.

[Nuke]

you wouldnt have the push effect of an atmospheric shockwave in space. only the actual mass of the nuke impact would be exerted on the hull.  it would have about the same effect of throwing a pebble at a bus. even when the mass is converted directly to energy that energy is mostly just gamma rays and heat and abunch of other not so good things. you would have the effect of instantly vaporizing metal which would blast as much into the ship as out and thus would counteract any 'kick' so to speak. all nukes would have is a melting effect, followed by a blast of radioactive super hot liquified armor plating.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.


No, it doesn't answer at all. 5000Mt Total for the Fusion+3 Fission Bombs. Thus, 1 Harbinger (Combo of 4 Bombs)=5 Gigatons.

Actually, if you read it again, that's where he's getting the 5GT limit from; he's simply interpreting the plural 'payloads' as being for the total of 2 bombs on the ship rather than the total for the bombs forming the individual Harbinger.

Given that 'payload' can refer to either warhead payload or fighter payload, IMO it's an understandable assumption.  And as the weapons limit is given as being due to the warhead power, assuming there is a cap of either 5 or 10 GT (depending on how you determine the Harbinger yield) on ordenance carried by ships makes logical sense.

You wanted to know where ngtm1r derived it?  I'd wager that's where.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Well he's wrong

[NGTM-1R]

Actually, that'd be karajorma's interpretation. I subscribe to it, but he came up with it.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Doesn't make it less wrong