Star Trek Vs Harrington

[Kyle]

According to Weber, the new missile carries the same warhead as the standard capital missile: "a capital missile launches a small cluster of laser heads which separate themselves physically from one another but combine the input from all of their tracking systems in an effort to obtain the most effective firing positions for each independent warhead."


Can someone doublecheck some physics math for me? A capital missile is capable of 85,000G for 180 seconds. If we assume half the acceleration goes to evasive maneuvers, that gives us the equivalent of 85,000 G for 90 seconds. 85,000 G works out to roughly 833,000 m/s/s, for a total velocity of 74,970,000 m/s.

The mass of a missile is 80 tons - in order to lowball, I'll call it 72,000 kilograms.

Kinetic energy equals half of mass times velocity squared. This works out to 4.04676E+20 joules, or the equivalent of 96,719 megatons (96.719 gigatons). Now, this is a terminal missile strike, but unless I've screwed up some math somewhere, that's absurdly above the warhead power.

The thing to remember about honorverse missiles is point defense efficiency. Missiles don't use nuclear contact warheads, they use bomb pumped lasers because they give a standoff range of around 30,000 kilometers.


So I'm not surprised that they are more dangerous as KE weapons. The problem is that the odds of actually making contact are almost impossible.

Lets say that the missile makes it through the PD envelope without getting hit. It now has to turn off its wedge, or the ships wedge would cause the missiles nodes to blow, destroying the missile. So at this point it has to go ballistic to survive.

After this it then has to pass through the sidewall,the honorverse does have devices that allow this but the one time we see them used only half the missiles that reached the sidewall breach it.

If it does make it through the sidewall it now has to hit the (relatively) tiny ship at the center of the wedge. Except DW has said that ships have the ability to "jink" within the wedge, so the missile can't even just be aimed at the center of the wedge.

Thats why laserheads are used, they create a porcupine effect of multiple beams and usually out of that only one or two even hit the ship.

Its late for me and I'm tired so I hope this makes sense. If not I'll try to clear it up when I'm not halfway asleep.

[Nerem]

What I wanna know is: What are 'penetrators' for Sidewalls and stuff, and how the hell do the 'bomb-pumped lasers' work? Its sounds so... vague.

[Beowulf]

What I wanna know is: What are 'penetrators' for Sidewalls and stuff, and how the hell do the 'bomb-pumped lasers' work? Its sounds so... vague.

Sidewall Penetrators are a unexplained technology. What they do is basically force an opening in the sidewall, allowing the missile it's on to pass through.

Bomb-pumped lasers are a derivation of the RL Star Wars program. Basically, you have a rod of lasing material. When the x-ray energy from the nuclear device hits the rod, an x-ray laser is created, with a beam going out of the rod.

[Batman]

What I wanna know is: What are 'penetrators' for Sidewalls and stuff, and how the hell do the 'bomb-pumped lasers' work? Its sounds so... vague.

Welcome to SD.net, Nerem. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
With that out of the way, bomb-pumped lasers are actually a real-world concept, and sidewall penetrators work the same way Honorverse sidewalls, gravitics, stardrive, impellers etc work-somehow.
Their behaviour seems to be moderately consistent. That's more than other SciFi franchises can claim.

[The Dark]

Kinetic energy equals half of mass times velocity squared. This works out to 4.04676E+20 joules, or the equivalent of 96,719 megatons (96.719 gigatons). Now, this is a terminal missile strike, but unless I've screwed up some math somewhere, that's absurdly above the warhead power.

The thing to remember about honorverse missiles is point defense efficiency. Missiles don't use nuclear contact warheads, they use bomb pumped lasers because they give a standoff range of around 30,000 kilometers.


So I'm not surprised that they are more dangerous as KE weapons. The problem is that the odds of actually making contact are almost impossible.

Yeah, I agree with the reasoning behind why they use much lower-powered bomb-pumped lasers, but it explains why kinetic strikes scare the hell out of people. That single missile is equivalent to about 4.5 heavy turbolaser blasts. Against a low-maneuverability target without the gravitic technology of the Honorverse, those sort of kinetic strikes would be fatal.

Ghost Rider and the MDMs make it even worse, since they have higher accelerations and the MDMs have longer drive durations.

[Batman]

And what, exactly, had I to do with that?

[The Dark]

And what, exactly, had I to do with that?

Well, I edited the hell out of it, but I was agreeing with the reasoning of why they don't rely on pure KE weapons. With their point defense, semi-stealth (within the wedge), and maneuverability relative to the missiles, a clean hit would be virtually impossible.

[Batman]

And what, exactly, had I to do with that?

Well, I edited the hell out of it, but I was agreeing with the reasoning of why they don't rely on pure KE weapons. With their point defense, semi-stealth (within the wedge), and maneuverability relative to the missiles, a clean hit would be virtually impossible.

How shall I put it...If you quote me, how about you actually quote me?

[HRogge]

Also the kinetic defense of the Honorverse is much better than the defense against energy weapons. Even their particle shield (inferior to the sidewall) can stop KE impacts up to two gigatons energy. The sidewall is nearly immune to KE impacts (unless your sidewall penetrator is working) and the wedge is immune against everything the Honorverse can throw against it (including huge volleys of MDMs).

[Dahak]

The mass of a missile is 80 tons - in order to lowball, I'll call it 72,000 kilograms.

80 tons was around the size of a measly cruiser-sized missile. Capital Missiles are heavier still.

[PhoenixVTam]

The mass of a missile is 80 tons - in order to lowball, I'll call it 72,000 kilograms.

80 tons was around the size of a measly cruiser-sized missile. Capital Missiles are heavier still.

In "Honor Among Enemies", the Mark 27 Mod C single-drive pod missile -- which is noted to be bigger and more powerful than a "regular" capital ship missile -- is stated to be 120 tons in standard gravity and just shy of fifteen metres long.

[The Dark]

The mass of a missile is 80 tons - in order to lowball, I'll call it 72,000 kilograms.

80 tons was around the size of a measly cruiser-sized missile. Capital Missiles are heavier still.

In "Honor Among Enemies", the Mark 27 Mod C single-drive pod missile -- which is noted to be bigger and more powerful than a "regular" capital ship missile -- is stated to be 120 tons in standard gravity and just shy of fifteen metres long.

Simple enough to scale. Since it's linear with mass, a 50% more massive missile means 50% more kinetic energy - 145 gigatons.