Renewed_Valour1 wrote:Connor MacLeod wrote:
I agree with that one. My personal hunch is that they are somewhere in the 500 mt range from the damage they've done to ships compared to OM-5s.
Possibly that high, although I suspect they could do it with 100-250 MT damage as well. I'd suspect yields to be significantly larger on their M/AM or any fusion warheads they have (they're bound to have them) like those ones used to destroy the Balance of Judgement. Bare hull (striped of point defense gravity defenses and battle blades and other "countermeasures) seem to be pretty easily penetrated by a full on 20 MT missile, which is supported by what Paul Woodmansee has said in the past about KE missiles versus hulls.
The only reason you'd need a significantly greater KE yield is to ensure hull penetration after PDG degradation.) IIRC early on Paul said on slipstreambbs (before the crash) that the Point defense gravity field projectors could degrade KE yields on a missile from megaton range to kiloton range - absorbing about 85-90,000 TJ per missile, roughly by my estimate. A larger missile could be 3-5 KG (60-100 MT roughly) and possibly exceed the PDG degradation capability. They may use 500 MT kinetic warheads to make pushing the missile off course far more difficult, though. I suspect such missiles would probably punch through the hull itself though (not a bad thing neccesarily, since that means only a little KE can be absorbed, wasting the rest in a "shoot through" - I believe this is apart of the damage control design in an Andromeda ship (Along with spacing out internal systems to prevent multiple failures.)
I believe Paul also inferred (Through this same quote IIRC) that the hulls can take a DEGRADED missile (suggesting they can probably withstand, but less than 20 MT)
We do know that the MIRV variant smart missiles assuming it uses 20 mt warheads has 5 warheads putting it at a yield of 100 mts. Now again the regular smart missiles seem to pack a lot more punch than the MIRV variant; which tends to be used to overwhelm defenses.
I recall them having seven missiles from the show, but that would be 100-150 MT or so, and would fit with what I said above.
As you noted the writers have said the AP cannons are several more times powerful than the entire missile broadside of the Glorious Heritage Cruiser.
This would suggest that an order of magnitude is the upper limit. Several times would probably be at least 2-3x, suggesting the total output of a GHC is in the tens of gigatons/second range for AP cannons AND missiles.
Upper limit going with the 320 GT/s estimate would put it in the 2-4 Teraton/s total output range.
I suspect its less than that though. Those 30 proximity warheads used to destroy the BOJ were probably some form of energy-releasing "warhead" (like a M/AM or fusion bomb) rather than kinetic warhead. That applies an upper limit of some 15-30 GT on the thermal absorption capabilities of a commonwealth starship's naked hull (assuming defenses were totally bypassed, to be generous)
As for the reasoning behind it most of it can be linked back to no FTL sensors. The missiles can track in on their targets unlike AP cannons. If a ship gets down to the 3 light second range needed for AP cannons to be effective you are essentially in a knife fight with the other ship. If you look back on this topic on SlipstreamBBS you'll find many discussion about why they use missiles over beam weapons. Many of them posted by Ash Miller, Zack Stenz, or the show's science advisor.
I've been aware of them for quite awhile, and am quite familiar with the method of combat (and the implications) in the Andromeda universe. For the most part they subscribe to a similar philosophy that weberverse novels use in most respects (lack of a tactical FTL drive, reliance on sublight engines for in-system mobility, importance of missile combat at longer ranges, etc.) It works very well for their universe (and enemies that use similar tactics) - but I suspect that they'd probably have a harder time (if not impossible) in an energy duel with an opponent like the Empire. B5 and ST they could possibly/probably match still, though. Generally, if they don't use it in their universe, and there is generally reason to believe they are capable of it, there must be a reason it doesn't work
Another reason I think is that you don't want to get in knife fighting ranges with many of the Commonwealth's traditional enemies. The Pyrians have powerful ECM, AG mass packets to cripple your maneuverability, and then they cook your ship at short range with plasma cannons. The Magog try to board at close ranges and some or all of their ships are armed with point singularity projectors. Either one has the capacity to severely hurt even a heavy cruiser that gets stupid and too close.
I recall that. It also parallels the notion that "energy weapon range duels are lethal and brutal" that often occurs in Weberverse novels. The reason for this is simply that missiles are easier to shoot down, deflect, or stop than a beam weapon is (thats one of the prime disadvantages of a missile weapon over a beam weapon.). Lacking the sci fi shields of other universes (Andromeda's antimbeam defenses - cold plasma armor, and the PDG fields, seem to act more like Honorverse defenses) they tend to be more vulnerable to energy weapon attack.
Belly of the Beast:
Hunt: "Trance we are working on a bomb that can destroy a small planet and you're quibbling over semantics."
My personal interpretation is like you said a small planetoid or asteroid is probably more realistic and fits with what it did.
So it was a bomb? (I missed that episode and haven't gotten ahold of it yet. Soon I hope) That might help settle things with that quote, and it starts making more sense. Question though. Did they use only one tank, or possibly more than one (IE did they state directly they used only one, or was this more of an inference). Its also possible the tank acted as a "trigger" to a much more powerful reaction or energy source, but thats reaching without me watching the episode. And of course, "planet" can mean something more like a planetoid. Not that it matters too much. Judging by what you say, we have a pretty good benchmark
AP Cannon Firing: I can't seem to dig up the few seconds of steady fire one from slipstream but I found this one from the chat transcript on the official site.
SPEAKER_pwoodman::
"The AP gun can fire as long as you have AP in a continuous stream, however you will run out of AP quickly."
He also states the AP cannons usually limit their fire to a few grams at a time rather than firing a steady stream. My guess is because their typical role is attempting to take out fighters/patrol craft that get too close to the ship.
