Photon Torpedoes vs Nukes

[starfury]

There have been plenty of on screen incidents of greater then MT level firepower. The weakest TDIC calc is in the GT range even

you mean that attack by the romulan-cardassian fleet where they were fed data by the dominion and we saw little visible damage

[TheDarkling]

Starfury: Take it here http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=2980 so this thread doesnt get hijacked.

[Kamakazie Sith]

By many calculations the real world has had missiles with greater range, accuracy and yield then the Photon since the late 50's and early 60's. Course they are much larger and without vectored thrust wouldn't work in space.

What are you smoking? Did those calculation take into considering the events from the episode TNG "The Wounded"?

I think the four major battles with dozens if not hundreds of torpedos fired shown on DS9 overrule any single example.

Wrong again. Follow the "torpedo cam" there are dozens of Klingon ships clearly out of visual range.

[Sea Skimmer]

What are you smoking? Did those calculation take into considering the events from the episode TNG "The Wounded"?

I think the four major battles with dozens if not hundreds of torpedos fired shown on DS9 overrule any single example.

Wrong again. Follow the "torpedo cam" there are dozens of Klingon ships clearly out of visual range.

So what? Even if your right, which I highly doubt given that we also saw them missing kilometer range ships well within visuall range, The real missiles I was referring to can hit warships at 250 miles, that’s BVR by a good margin. And using late 50's tech aginst much smaller targets.

[Alyeska]

I think the four major battles with dozens if not hundreds of torpedos fired shown on DS9 overrule any single example.

Wrong again. Follow the "torpedo cam" there are dozens of Klingon ships clearly out of visual range.

So what? Even if your right, which I highly doubt given that we also saw them missing kilometer range ships well within visuall range, The real missiles I was referring to can hit warships at 250 miles, that’s BVR by a good margin. And using late 50's tech aginst much smaller targets.

Can you please provide a specific example of the torpedoes having missed ships within a KM of the station?

[TheDarkling]

There are alot of torps that fly out of view but they are probably going after ships in the distance.

[Alyeska]

There are alot of torps that fly out of view but they are probably going after ships in the distance.

Which is my point. We see several torpedoes fired at the SAME spot apparently missing a Klingon ship, except torpedoes are still fired at this same spot even after the Klingon ship has moved. It would seem the station is firing at Klingon ships out of view and BVR from the station.

[Sea Skimmer]

Wrong again. Follow the "torpedo cam" there are dozens of Klingon ships clearly out of visual range.

So what? Even if your right, which I highly doubt given that we also saw them missing kilometer range ships well within visuall range, The real missiles I was referring to can hit warships at 250 miles, that’s BVR by a good margin. And using late 50's tech aginst much smaller targets.

Can you please provide a specific example of the torpedoes having missed ships within a KM of the station?

By kilometer range I meant the approximate size of the target vessel, not the range from station to target. 1 minute 35 seconds into the Trek miss video provides my example. Multiple torpedoes essentially walk across the Neg Var, most missing wide while one or two strike. Other footage within that episiod show the range from the target to to DS9 as being a couple kilometers.

Care to explain why DS9 would be shooting at ships that are BVR, while others close to point blank firing and in one case actually ram the stations shields? Course the fact that Trek crews are inept in combat is already pretty well established.

[Australopithicus]

Can you two stop that? It's really giving me a headache...

[Kamakazie Sith]

By kilometer range I meant the approximate size of the target vessel, not the range from station to target. 1 minute 35 seconds into the Trek miss video provides my example. Multiple torpedoes essentially walk across the Neg Var, most missing wide while one or two strike. Other footage within that episiod show the range from the target to to DS9 as being a couple kilometers.

Care to explain why DS9 would be shooting at ships that are BVR, while others close to point blank firing and in one case actually ram the stations shields? Course the fact that Trek crews are inept in combat is already pretty well established.

Do we know if there were any targets behind the Negvar BVR? This whole episode is basically irrelevant because of the possibility of targets BVR.

The ship that managed to ram DS9, it did seem like a phaser missed it, but this is about photons.

DS9 was firing an multiple targets randomly, they didn't seem to be focusing on a specific group, or class of ship.

[Oberleutnant]

It is also possible that they abandoned nuclear weapons following WWIII, by treaty with the countries of Earth, or something like that.

In 'Balance of Terror' Spock said that the Earth-Romulan war was fought with atomic weapons. How reliable this information still is (considering the modern Trek policy towards TOS) I don't know.

[EmperorMing]

B&B will screw with that too...

[Oddity]

Damn, nearly everyone post while I sleep.

Anyway, thanks for the input, people. I began thinking of this photon vs nuke thing when I realised that Starfleet's best bet would be to bugger of and become a Rebellion.

Problem is, they are dependent on antimatter so they'd have to set up a hidden factory to produce the stuff. The only way to do this (that I know of) is to build several square kilometres of solar panels, hook it up to a particle accelerator and place it near a sun.

It goes without saying that such a factory is easily destroyed. So if the Empire discovers it, Starfleet is screwed.

Therefore I wondered if it would be possible to substitute photons with fusion bombs (deuterium and tritium not uranium or plutonium), to at least reduce their dependence on antimatter. Better yet, a fusion bomb does not leave highly radioactive particles.

Of course, this is all dependent on how big a boom it is realistically possible to squeeze out of a nuke.

[Kuja]

POISON! Radioactive poison is what nukes are good for!

[Omega-13]

What sort of damage did that 57 mt device do that was detonated in russia in 1963, what sort of destructive range did it have?

[Australopithicus]

Got some info from DITL.

Apparently, a regular photon torpedo has a firepower of 18.5 laughable isotons (whilst they may be the same as tons in deadweight tonnage, they're 2.48 megatons in explosive yield), which amounts to 45.88 megatons.

However, a quantum torpedo is at around 71.8 isotons, making it at a less laughable 178 megatons. A type VI photon is stated in 'scorpion' to be 200 isotons, making it a relatively whopping 496 megatons.

B'Elanna's little war machine, dreadnought, is calculated at 16,879 isotons, putting it at 41,860 megatons. Finally, a Borg multikinetic neutronic mine is put at 5,000,000 isotons, leaving it at a huge (on anyone's scale) 12,400,000 megatons.

So there you have it. Standard photon - less than an H - Bomb. Type VI photon - significantly more.

Neutronic mine - BANG!!!!

[TheDarkling]

Isoton = Jack.
The isoton has you funky stuff going down with it and I dont think measurements based on it work, I will stick with my Petaton TDiC calcs I think (Ok I will be kind and knock them down to teraton/Gigaton level - say thank you Darkling).

[Doomriser]

There are alot of torps that fly out of view but they are probably going after ships in the distance.

Which is my point. We see several torpedoes fired at the SAME spot apparently missing a Klingon ship, except torpedoes are still fired at this same spot even after the Klingon ship has moved. It would seem the station is firing at Klingon ships out of view and BVR from the station.

Or it could also mean that the tubes were set to fire a burst and couldn't change their orientation in time. Hell, if the weapons are controlled from a station in Ops instead of gun crews, then the operator may have it set to auto while controlling another tube elsewhere.