Check my figures for matter conversion please.

[Currald]

I'm working on firepower figures for the Dauntless from Doc Smith's Lensman books. I'm pretty new to this weapons yield calculation thing, so would someone be so kind as to check my figures for me, please?

Here a figure that I got from another post. Is this correct? 9.752228 megatons per pound of matter converted to energy. Can anyone confirm or refute this equation?

Weapon power is measured in pounds per hour (lbh). The means pounds of matter converted to energy per hour.

The most powerful weapons type on the Dauntless, the primary beam, uses 0.0833333333333333333333333333333333 lbs per shot. This comes out to 0.812685666666666666666666666666667 Mt per shot, right?

I will post full firepower calcs after I have an idea as to whether I'm on the right track or not. Thanks for your help!

[Hotfoot]

I'm working on firepower figures for the Dauntless from Doc Smith's Lensman books. I'm pretty new to this weapons yield calculation thing, so would someone be so kind as to check my figures for me, please?

Ah, I was planning on getting around to that one of these days myself. Burned out doing calcs for Skylark stuff. That stuff is above Culture level in some key areas.

Here a figure that I got from another post. Is this correct? 9.752228 megatons per pound of matter converted to energy. Can anyone confirm or refute this equation?

e=mc^2 is the appropriate equation, IIRC.

Also, it helps to use the metric system. We don't want weight, we want mass.

Weapon power is measured in pounds per hour (lbh). The means pounds of matter converted to energy per hour.

The most powerful weapons type on the Dauntless, the primary beam, uses 0.0833333333333333333333333333333333 lbs per shot. This comes out to 0.812685666666666666666666666666667 Mt per shot, right?

For conversions, look here.

I will post full firepower calcs after I have an idea as to whether I'm on the right track or not. Thanks for your help!

If it helps at all, the Skylark Three was capable of roughly 7.8 Petatons per second or so.

[kojikun]

i can tell you that matter->energy conversion is nothing as meek as what you gave. a handfun of antimatter would produce a blast enough to level Texas.

[kojikun]

handful..

[Currald]

e=mc^2 is the appropriate equation, IIRC.

Fooken wicked! Quite. All right. I've never actually USED that famous equation for anything, so please somebody give me a brief primer (damned liberal arts education!). What are the units I should use here? Joules, grams and meters/second? Candlepower, stones and cubits per day?
Wow. I'm about to learn something. This is so exciting!

Also, it helps to use the metric system.

The figures I have are in standard measurement, but I can certainly convert them to metric if it's better.

We don't want weight, we want mass.

Are not pounds a measure of mass?

If it helps at all, the Skylark Three was capable of roughly 7.8 Petatons per second or so.

Yow! Have to posted any threads about Skylark here? I'd love to read 'em!

[Darth_Shinji]

I agree... I'm thinking your conversion is wrong (Though I'm not knoweledgeible enought in math like this to tell you how). Also I belive it matters what matter you a converting.


As far as calcing lensman goes, I'm going to try the rpg damage numbers by using the amount of duedec in a Q-bomb based on what I've heard said on the power of the stuff. A person on SB got primaries in the tt range. But I'm trying my own stuff. I'm waiting to see if its said in the latter novels I'm getting this chirstmas (I'm getting all of the Skylarks too and can hardly wait. )

[Neko_Oni]

Units are always Joules, Kilograms, Metres per Second.
Now if I'm not mistaken 1 pound equals 0.4536kg, so 1 pound of matter annihilated (1/2 pound of matter, 1/2 pound of antimatter) would give 9.72 megatons of energy (4.0824 x 10^16J). I might be off with the megaton part, I always forget how much a energy 1 megaton equals.

[Currald]

9.74367 megatons. Okay. I'll be back with my full calculations in some abount of time.

[Hotfoot]

Fooken wicked! Quite. All right. I've never actually USED that famous equation for anything, so please somebody give me a brief primer (damned liberal arts education!). What are the units I should use here? Joules, grams and meters/second? Candlepower, stones and cubits per day?
Wow. I'm about to learn something. This is so exciting!

Liberal Arts myself, though it would seem that I'm a borderline case.

Energy = Mass * Speed of Light ^2

Energy being in joules, mass being in grams and speed of light being in m/s (3e8, or 3*10^8) Obviously, you can alter these to kilojoules, kilograms, and kilometers, should you so choose. Yet another wonder of the metric system.

The figures I have are in standard measurement, but I can certainly convert them to metric if it's better.

Definately. Much easier to work with the metric system, especially when doing stuff like this. Standard is akin trying to swat a fly with a roach motel.

Are not pounds a measure of mass?

Nope. Pounds are weight, meaning that measurement varies depending on the gravitational conditions you are working with. Something weighing one pound on the surface of the Earth would be next to weightless in deepp space. Meanwhile, something that is 1 kg on Earth is still 1 kg no matter where it goes. Conversion in this case assumes that weight is using the Earth standard for gravity (9.8 m/s/s), and so a direct conversion to mass in metric terms is easy enough. It's a minor point, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Yow! Have to posted any threads about Skylark here? I'd love to read 'em!

I've alluded to some of the more salient bits here and there. The big debute of the data was a while back over at SpaceBattles, but I've still got the big one on file. Just looking for an appropriate time to unleash it for maximum effect.

[greenmm]

I'm working on firepower figures for the Dauntless from Doc Smith's Lensman books. I'm pretty new to this weapons yield calculation thing, so would someone be so kind as to check my figures for me, please?

Here a figure that I got from another post. Is this correct? 9.752228 megatons per pound of matter converted to energy. Can anyone confirm or refute this equation?

Weapon power is measured in pounds per hour (lbh). The means pounds of matter converted to energy per hour.

The most powerful weapons type on the Dauntless, the primary beam, uses 0.0833333333333333333333333333333333 lbs per shot. This comes out to 0.812685666666666666666666666666667 Mt per shot, right?

I will post full firepower calcs after I have an idea as to whether I'm on the right track or not. Thanks for your help!

It's about 9.78 MT per pound (1 lb = .4536 kg), with 815 kT per shot for those weapons.

If you can convert the lbs/hr to MT/hr, we can then get it to TW (1 MT/hr = 1.1625 TW of power).

[Currald]

Okay here it is. The Dauntless. I'm basing my power measurements on Sean Barrett's excellent GURPS Lensman, which seems to be quite well-regarded by the (non-anime) Lensman fan community (at least, that I'M aware of!). Aside from words like "coruscating" and "refulgent," Doc never realy gave us much hard data to work with. So I'll use Barrett's figures until someone can show me something better.

I've divided times into 30 second intervals, as that is the reload time for the primary beams, which use cartridges. So if each primary beam fires every 30 seconds as the ship rotates, and whatever macro beam have line of sight are firing continuously, you get the sustained firepower of the Dauntless. I've also calculated what would happen if the Dauntless let loose with everything it could all at once, which would leave it unable to fire any of its primaries for almost 30 seconds.

Also, I've assumed perfect efficiency, which is a bit silly. With Medonian superconductors and their near-perfect insulators there should be very little energy loss within the ship's systems, but all of that coruscating and refulgence has to come from somewhere, and it contributes nothing to the enemy's destruction. Oh well, it's pretty insignificant next to the numbers I'm dealing with. Some exciting EM radiation.

9.74367 Mt per pound of matter converted.

Macro Beams (a.k.a. secondaries) (20 total)
50 lph ea.
.41666 lb per 30 seconds
4.0598625 Mt per 30 seconds
40.598625 Mt per 30 seconds 10 guns firing (only 10 can fire on one target at any given time, due to line of sight issues)

Primary beams (24 total)
10 lph ea
0.60 seconds beam duration per shot before reload is needed.
30 seconds reload time.
0.0833333333333333333333333333333333 lb per shot
0.8119725 Mt per shot
19.48734 Mt per 30 seconds, all guns firing with ship rotation. (The ship could easily rotate at the 2 rpm needed to bring all of the primaries to bear by the time they reload.)

Total yield during 30 second period
This can be sustained indefinately:
60.085965 Mt

Fast, high-powered salvo (>1.2 seconds):
This assumes that the Dauntless fires half of her primaries (for 0.60 seconds) along with a 0.60 second salvo of macro beams, turns 180 degrees very quickly, and then does another 0.60 second blast with the weapons on the other side of the ship.
Total: 21.111285 Mt


So this puts it well below the current Star Wars estimates, which are well into the gigatons, neh?

I might just do some shield calculations some day, too.

[consequences]

my gut reaction to that is bullshit, but unless I can run some numbers under my feelings on the matter I'm going to have to let it stand.

[Currald]

Hey, my gut feeling is that the Dauntless should be able to blow through an ISD like so much vapor. Lensman just seems more epic than Star Wars. All I did was run Barrett's numbers through the appropriate equations. Whether Barrett's numbers are appropriate is certainly up for debate, as they are secondary material. Is there another benchmark we can use to determine Lensman weapon strengths?

[Hotfoot]

Hey, my gut feeling is that the Dauntless should be able to blow through an ISD like so much vapor. Lensman just seems more epic than Star Wars. All I did was run Barrett's numbers through the appropriate equations. Whether Barrett's numbers are appropriate is certainly up for debate, as they are secondary material. Is there another benchmark we can use to determine Lensman weapon strengths?

Lensman was the basis for Star Wars and a lot of other epic Sci-Fi. However, of Smith's work, it was by far the more gritty when compared to Skylark. Anything above the Skylark Three could blow through an ISD like so much vapor. Even the Skylark Two (the updated Skylark of Space would provide an ISD with some serious problems.

I'd have to scour the entire series of Lensman books and take careful notes to get any sort of reliable power estimations, but that alone would take up probably around a week of my time, which I can't spare at the moment. It's been a while since I've read Lensman though, who's Barrett?

[Lord Sauron-Tyranus-Vader]

i can tell you that matter->energy conversion is nothing as meek as what you gave. a handfun of antimatter would produce a blast enough to level Texas.

Hmm......
Bush's answer to nuclear weapons?
Antimatter missles.

USA!USA!USA!

[Neko_Oni]

No anti-matter weapon are bad. They're not safe to the firer. If anything goes wrong in containing the anti-matter you can kiss your missile silos goodbye (probably a good chunk of the surrounding terrain as well).

[Lord Sauron-Tyranus-Vader]

No anti-matter weapon are bad. They're not safe to the firer. If anything goes wrong in containing the anti-matter you can kiss your missile silos goodbye (probably a good chunk of the surrounding terrain as well).

Umm, I know that.
It was a joke.
Besides, why do you need AM when you have lasers.
Thats right folks, the Army is devolping a laser that can fit onto the top of a Humvee.
Cool huh?
If the next SW movie sucks, just watch a recruiment video.

[Darth_Shinji]

Hey, my gut feeling is that the Dauntless should be able to blow through an ISD like so much vapor. Lensman just seems more epic than Star Wars. All I did was run Barrett's numbers through the appropriate equations. Whether Barrett's numbers are appropriate is certainly up for debate, as they are secondary material. Is there another benchmark we can use to determine Lensman weapon strengths?

Don't worry.... even if it is true the lensman universe would still beat SW. Not much they can do to stop a planet... and the DS is nothing compared to the sun beam.

But I might have another calc for you... Anyone have the amount of Duedec in a Q-bomb?

[Currald]

Actually, it looks like I completely flubbed the primaries' calculations. The power consumption numbers were only for detonating and containing the duodec in each cartridge. The deonatig power of the duodec was the actual power source for the primaries. I'll have to do some more research before I can get revised primary strengths, but they should be somewhere between 1-2 orders of magnitude greater, at a guess.
Sean Barrett is the author of GURPS Lensman, which is a rather excellent Lensman reference book disguised as a role-playing game accessory. It's very nice in that it compiles a lot of data and lists and things together in an easy to access form, saving one from rereading the entire series every time one wants to know exactly what sorts of powers Lensmen have exhibited, the racial profile (!) of Rigellians (AABEFDBDGF to ten places), or the difference between a KJ42 beam and a K4 beam (heat generator and red-colored field, respectively). It's quite handy, and has only one inaccuracy identified so far to my knowledge. The Dauntless's crew is listed at 300,000 in Barrett's book, but it actually 2,100.

[Currald]

But I might have another calc for you... Anyone have the amount of Duedec in a Q-bomb?

I know that it is 1,000,000 times as explosive as TNT. (Barrett)
The Q-Gun shell had 20 tons of duodec (Smith)

So, the yield is 20 megatons. Simple.

[Currald]

the DS is nothing compared to the sun beam

I dunno about that. The Death Star blew up Alderaan in a second. It would take a sunbeam around 21 seconds (give or take) to do a similar job. Plus, the Death Star is more versitile, as it can be used offensively.

[His Divine Shadow]

i can tell you that matter->energy conversion is nothing as meek as what you gave. a handfun of antimatter would produce a blast enough to level Texas.

Godamn what a freaky picture.
Anyway MA/AM reactions yield 9e16j per kg or 21 megatons, it wouldn't level all of texas, and a handful is probably less than a kg in weight.

[Darth_Shinji]

But I might have another calc for you... Anyone have the amount of Duedec in a Q-bomb?

I know that it is 1,000,000 times as explosive as TNT. (Barrett)
The Q-Gun shell had 20 tons of duodec (Smith)

So, the yield is 20 megatons. Simple.

Actually I've heard a different number for Duedec, so I'll use both and see what I'll get. I'll post it tonight.

[Darth_Shinji]

the DS is nothing compared to the sun beam

I dunno about that. The Death Star blew up Alderaan in a second. It would take a sunbeam around 21 seconds (give or take) to do a similar job. Plus, the Death Star is more versitile, as it can be used offensively.

But the sunbeam has better range. It would cook a DS long before a DS could get into range. And as far as verstility goes...thats why there trow planets... prob more effective cost wise considering all they havre to do is biuld the sattelite system.

[Darth_Shinji]

Okay new clacs based on the rpg firepower system.

Here is what I've read about Duedoc on SB.

Technology
explosives are not used much b/c an inertialess ship will just ride the shockwave. Duodec explosive is 1 million times as powerful as TNT and has a propogation rate equal to lightspeed. One ounce equals roughly 625 kilotons of TNT
An inertialess ship is immune to physical attacks, and energy weapons attacks are 1/100th the usual effectiveness

Now if 1 ounce equals 625 kt... then:
1pound= 10 megatons
1tn= 20gigatons
and 20 tn=400gt
meaning a q-bomb equals and explosive blast of 400gt.

Now in the rpg firepower of a q-bomb flucates on ships but at its max does 100 firepower. So lets say a 100 firpower is 400gts.

Here are the firepower listings for lensman weapons.

Needler=200
MB=500
Primary=20,000

KNow lets apply my figures.

N=800gt
MB=200,000gt
P=8,000,000gt

Might have my math wrong on those last numbers.

Lets us 20 mt figues as well. (Since I'm not sure how he got the kt fiqure.)

N=40mt
MB=1gt
P=400gt

Number of weapons on the duantless.
15N= totaling 3,000 firepower
20MB=100,000 firepower
8- three projector primary turrets=4.8 million firepower.

Either way we are looking at some nicer fiqures for lensman... basing this on my gut instincts... go with the 20 mts... though I'm considering pming the person who gave that original description to see where he got it.)