Enterprise vs. Concordia

[Bob McDob]

I'd just like to point out that since the topic seems to have drifted to planetary bombardment that WC ships are perfectly capable of blowing the hell out of things with constant streams of 500MT thermonukes. Thank you.

[Darth Wong]

They only got to fire a single volley. And I am not supporting the sensor material per say. I am not claiming they destroyed 30% of the planets entire crust. I am saying they destroyed 30% of the crust in their targeted area but it would still take them 1 hour.

And how do you define "destroy?"

Besides, when is their going to be ejecta if their weapons are primarily NDF based?

If it's all NDF, we would still expect to see glowing mantle. To destroy 500 million square kilometres of surface area to a depth of several kilometres in one hour, you need to be blowing through more than 100,000 square kilometres of crust all the way through to the mantle every second. Their first volley was how long? Five seconds? Ten seconds? There should have been a million square kilometres of exposed mantle; I didn't see it. Did you?

[Ghost Rider]

I'd just like to point out that since the topic seems to have drifted to planetary bombardment that WC ships are perfectly capable of blowing the hell out of things with constant streams of 500MT thermonukes. Thank you.

Giant Kitty Super bombs...though it was nice of them to provide such.

Actually on that, any idea of how much power the Phase Transit Cannon on the Corcordia puts out?

[Bob McDob]

Nope.

(All we know is the damage of the Concordia's PTC, which is 100.0cm durasteel)

[Bob McDob]

And now, a parting gift for tonight - the calcs (text stolen from a post by Megagurias at SB, I basically changed the numbers)

Anyway it's from a quote about the Tarawa ramming Kilrah in 'End Run' that said the resultant hit would be equal to several dozen matter/antimatter warheads.

Now the Tarawa is supposed to be a refitted transport so lets say it masses in at 19,500 tonnes [the mass of the Waterloo cruiser, which carries the same number of fighters]

So..

19,500,000 * 10,080,000^2 =

1.9813248e21 joules or 473.5479924 gigatons total.

Now according to the American Heritage dictionary Several when used as an adjective means a number more than 2 or 3.

So lets assume it means twelve [or 144 warheads] and we get 3.29 gigatons or so per warhead (or about 6 times the number given for the Strontium clad nukes the kilrathi were using).

For that, assuming a 100% efficient reaction you'd need ~??? lbs of M/AM

[TC]

fighter carry some damn big torpedoes, hundreds of megatons by most calcs, and some will get through.

Most calcs? I very much doubt fighter mounted torpedos are more than a hundred or two megatons, tops, which is much larger than what I would personally describe them as. Considering the Temblor bomb was 273 MT and was huge for a fighter mount, and the nukes dropped by capital ships in Fleet Action for planetary bombardment were 500 mt, one would expect a normal anti-capital ship fighter mounted torpedo to be somewhat smaller

Yes, it would outrun the fighters. WC fighters at full after burner can't even make 1km per second. The Bombers must lock on the Enterprise first. That takes time and they can't manuever greatly. The Enterprise can simply manuever to avoid torpedo locks.

Quite seriously, I wish people would stop saying this. It's not supportable that fighters travel at their marked speed but in meters per second. There are too many point blank statements of ship speed and things that don't make sense in the universe if ships travel that slowly.

DuraSteele

Stop spelling Durasteel wrong, it's rather annoying.

Do you think it would stop torpedoes that have penetrated the crust of planets upon impact?

Well, to be pedantic, ship armour quite easily stopped the Temblor bomb!

Easily. It's a fucking capital ship, hence, has the room for armor.
The Vesisvuius in WCP:SO has 4,000 cm of armor. Even assuming
a 1,000 to 1 ratio of durasteel equivalent/armor, which is really
insanely generous, thats still 1 metre of armor protecting you.

First, it's just WC:SO, there's no P in there.

Secondly, there are a multitude of armor materials, we don't know the exact composition of the hulls in prophecy, nor what the conversion rate to durasteel is.

and what exactly is Durasteel (in the WC context) anyway? What is it's hardness? what is it's density?

I once made a set of calculations based on the information from privateer that the adding of Tungsten armor provides 20x the protection of durasteel... I used the assumption that it was refering to pure tungsten, unmodified in any way, which is stupid and unrealistic, but gave me something to do.

As for the armor thickness, armor has to be thick, no matter what, even
if it's uberarmor that is incredibly dense, in order to resist projectiles
effectively.

It obviously depends entirely on the materials.

WC fighters have 3.6 megaton lasers by some estimates

And by some estimates, my car can travel half the speed of light!

And now, a parting gift for tonight - the calcs (text stolen from a post by Megagurias at SB, I basically changed the numbers)

The terrifying thing is, last time I was reading End Run, I saw this bit and thought "wow, that's neat, I'm going to figure that out"... I don't even generally partake in these discussions, I just do that sort of thing randomly.

I think this may be one of those things that you just have to write off as a mistake from the character. It doesn't fit with the rest of the data that we appear to have. We definately haven't seen hints at weapon strengths even approaching that large. Large weapons launched from capships, the largest we've ever seen solid numbers for, are 500 megatons. It's possible he isn't very good with math, or physics.

[Darth Wong]

Where the hell did he get 10,000 km/s from? Those calcs are based on 10,080 km/s, which seems rather fast for a freighter, doesn't it?

[MKSheppard]

Where the hell did he get 10,000 km/s from? Those calcs are based on 10,080 km/s, which seems rather fast for a freighter, doesn't it?

Uhm, Space, big honking engines....newtonian physics.....anything can
get going fast enough given enough time...

[Darth Wong]

Where the hell did he get 10,000 km/s from? Those calcs are based on 10,080 km/s, which seems rather fast for a freighter, doesn't it?

Uhm, Space, big honking engines....newtonian physics.....anything can
get going fast enough given enough time...

Two words: fuel limitations.

Again, where did he get this speed figure from?

[MKSheppard]

Again, where did he get this speed figure from?

I think from End Run, which I surprisingly have in my library. OTOH,
when they turned the tarawa from a transport into a CVE, they ripped
out the old transport engines and put in the powerplant from a Gilgamesh
Destroyer......

[TC]

Two words: fuel limitations.

Again, where did he get this speed figure from?

End Run, page 264... it's not that huge a speed, really... Capital ships routinely travel with their scoops off, as they have fuel reserves that can either be replaced later, or refilled by using their scoops to slow back down.

[Bob McDob]

Can an Excalibur carry a torpedo?

[Ghost Rider]

I don't believe so...neither WC3 or 4 showed it having the capacity.

Though the Dragon could...but I digress.

[Enlightenment]

(All we know is the damage of the Concordia's PTC, which is 100.0cm durasteel)

? 100cm damage from the PTC doesn't jive with the WC2 game mechanics where the PTC could obliterate Fralthra crusiers (600-700cm armor) in one shot.

[Bob McDob]

No ... actually, the cruisers are armored with 60-70 cm durasteel eq. (probably plasteel, which is an order of magnitude stronger). Armor and shield measurements are given in tenths of a cm (source: Victory Streak). So unless the laser became an order of magnitude more powerful, the Fralthra has 70.0 cm armor.

(The Vesuvius uses Platolum, which is who knows how many times stronger ... probably two orders of magnitude)

[Bob McDob]

Here's something to consider: one burst from a Scimitar's twinlasers (at least I'm assuming they're lasers; the front-line models carried mass drivers) was enough to disintegrate a rainforest area large enough for the two Scimitars to land wingtip to wingtip. The Scimm's wingspan as about the same as its length (26 meters) Somebody do the math, because I sure as hell can't.

[TC]

No ... actually, the cruisers are armored with 60-70 cm durasteel eq. (probably plasteel, which is an order of magnitude stronger). Armor and shield measurements are given in tenths of a cm (source: Victory Streak). So unless the laser became an order of magnitude more powerful, the Fralthra has 70.0 cm armor.

No. Weapons were measured in tenths of centimeters (damage units), armor is in actual values.

[TC]

Here's something to consider: one burst from a Scimitar's twinlasers (at least I'm assuming they're lasers; the front-line models carried mass drivers) was enough to disintegrate a rainforest area large enough for the two Scimitars to land wingtip to wingtip. The Scimm's wingspan as about the same as its length (26 meters) Somebody do the math, because I sure as hell can't.

I just want to point out that clearing space doesn't equal disintigration. Concussion will toss stuff away quite easily...

[Bob McDob]

Considering the area looked as it it was cleared for farmland, I'd say that was one hell of a concussion!

[The Yosemite Bear]

You know Cylon Baseship vs. ISD would be more fair then this....

especially when the Baseship doesn't stand a SCiH, while the Tie fighters would be overwhelmed by the ungodly numbers of Cylons....

[The Nomad]

If it's all NDF, we would still expect to see glowing mantle. To destroy 500 million square kilometres of surface area to a depth of several kilometres in one hour, you need to be blowing through more than 100,000 square kilometres of crust all the way through to the mantle every second. Their first volley was how long? Five seconds? Ten seconds? There should have been a million square kilometres of exposed mantle; I didn't see it. Did you?

Well, modern trek NDF seems to have very little glowing effects when compared to TOS cool flashes ( see Weyoun's disintegration by a feddie phaser, or the effect of JH guns on their victims when set to "disintegrate" ). With a thick atmosphere and possibly limited dust rejection, ( but that's a lot of "if"s ), glowing effects should be unnoticeable. Shit, what a fucking self-inconsistent episode !!

[SirNitram]

If it's all NDF, we would still expect to see glowing mantle. To destroy 500 million square kilometres of surface area to a depth of several kilometres in one hour, you need to be blowing through more than 100,000 square kilometres of crust all the way through to the mantle every second. Their first volley was how long? Five seconds? Ten seconds? There should have been a million square kilometres of exposed mantle; I didn't see it. Did you?

Well, modern trek NDF seems to have very little glowing effects when compared to TOS cool flashes ( see Weyoun's disintegration by a feddie phaser, or the effect of JH guns on their victims when set to "disintegrate" ). With a thick atmosphere and possibly limited dust rejection, ( but that's a lot of "if"s ), glowing effects should be unnoticeable. Shit, what a fucking self-inconsistent episode !!

Perfectly consistant. The 30% destruction was false sensor readings, something stated unequivacobly by a main character. The glow he is asking for is not the glow of NDF, but the glow of billions of tons of magma exposed to the atmosphere.. Oh, and we've seen the planet's surface. It isn't Jovian.