Star Trek Vs Harrington

[SCVN 2812]

Planet of the Apes.

The Race?

In the last book the Race stated it was willing to use relativistic impacters to take out Earth if we overplayed our hand and started trying to dictate terms to them. They could definatley take out the Feds that way.

Time is on the Feds' side, as of Homeward Bound the Race was by their own admission half a century or more away from FTL unaided (memory fails if that was Race or Earth years.) The Federation has years to find Home, all planets which are practically in Earth's backyard, Halless and Rabotev and wreck the Race's ship building capability and turn around and start looking for those impactors and ensuring that as large and potent of anti-matter mines they can deploy are in the path of said impactors. If not a contingent of starships who should have no trouble phasorizing Race materials once they've used warp drive to get in front of the impactors.

I'm not aware of anything that precludes the Federation from detecting objects moving at a significant fraction of C inbound to a system with hours of notice and putting a warp capable starship and its ordinance between the planet and the impactors.

[The Dark]

Here's the actual incident.

A two-hundred-megaton warhead detonated less than fifty kilometers from her ship. For one fleeting instant, Jamie Candless was trapped in the very heart of a star, and Honor's canopy went black as the armorplast polarized.

I'd like to assume 40 km as the detonation range.

Two hundred Megatons is the equivalent of 8.38*10^17 Joules.
40 km distance yields a surface area of 20.1 billion square meters (20,106 square kilometers).
This is ~41.7 MegaJoules per square meter.

Still, from Atomic Rockets, 1 Megaton at 1 kilometer will do 3.3E10 W/cm^2. We have a blast two hundred times stronger, but 40 times the distance, making it 1/1600 the blast.

Net = 1/8 the Wattage per square centimeter, or 4.125*10^9 W/cm^2.

So the surface (assuming aluminum) would be vaporized, but not much more.

40 kilometers is the kilt of a superdreadnought's wedge, so that would be somewhat extreme for a one-person light craft. I don't have a solid suggestion for a better number, but it would almost certainly be half that or less.

[Batman]

Hello? When a writer says less than fifty (one that, other than for the mass/volume blunder seems to know his numbers) I seriously doubt he means 25 or less. Besides the very reason Candless survived was it WASN'T an up-the-kilt shot, the warhead apparently detonated below and slightly ahead of her, meaning the majority of the explosion (leave alone the nonexistant IRL plasma wave) didn't even hit her radiation shields.
Not that it makes much in the way of difference-even if we adjust the numbers for a 25 km up-the-kilt detonation, radiation shielding as is supposed to exist in the Honorverse should be able to flat out ignore that.

[Prozac the Robert]

I'm having a little trouble understanding quite what happened.

The nuke detonates less than 50km from the ship. Good so far.

And the wedge is placed so that you can't draw a line from the ship to the centre of the blast.

So how is the ship in any danger at all?

As for the radiation shielding itself, are we to read it that the shield is a sort of plane force field across the throat of the wedge? In that case the shield generators could still be over stressed even if the ship itself was in no danger. And if we had an idea of the area of said throat, and the angle at which it was presented to the nuke, we could work out how much energy they can stand.

[Connor MacLeod]

The majority of the Candless blast, IIRC, hit the widewall/wedge, only small portions of the energy actually struck "at" the ship directly (or rather at the partticle/radiation shields.) The distance as noted further offsets that.

However, it should be noted that for some bizarre reason the nuke detonation was mostly (almost entirely probably) plasma, so I don't know how that influences things.

[Prozac the Robert]

However, it should be noted that for some bizarre reason the nuke detonation was mostly (almost entirely probably) plasma, so I don't know how that influences things.

I was assuming we'd ignore that, since spreading any sane amount of mass over a sphere of 50km radius is going to give a completely insignificant density.

[HRogge]

The majority of the Candless blast, IIRC, hit the widewall/wedge, only small portions of the energy actually struck "at" the ship directly (or rather at the partticle/radiation shields.) The distance as noted further offsets that.

I'm not sure if the Candless even has sidewalls... and the nuke might have detonated at the edge of the wedge.

However, it should be noted that for some bizarre reason the nuke detonation was mostly (almost entirely probably) plasma, so I don't know how that influences things.

Maybe it had more plasma because of the higher mass of the stealth drone the bomb was placed in. More material to vaporize.

[Prozac the Robert]

However, it should be noted that for some bizarre reason the nuke detonation was mostly (almost entirely probably) plasma, so I don't know how that influences things.

Maybe it had more plasma because of the higher mass of the stealth drone the bomb was placed in. More material to vaporize.

Look, if the drone somehow had the mass of a light cruiser (which would of course be ridiculous), apparently around 80,000 tons, and that mass was spread over a sphere of radius 50km, I get the density to be around 6*10^-7 kg/m^3. The density of air for comparison is around 1.2kg/m^3.

According to wikipedia, 10^-3kg/m^3 is the densisty achievable with a mechanical vacuum pump, and 10^-5 is the density at 82km above the earth's surface.

In short, said plasma is crap. And a stealth drone should be expected to mass a lot less than that.

[Prozac the Robert]

A little thinking later: If the plasma moves out in a vaguely cohesive shell, then you might get orders of magnitude more density. I don't think you'll get enough to notice it though. It depends on the thickness of said shell, but at absolute best you might times by a factor of 50,000 to go from density to surface area. That still leaves you in mechanical vacuum pump territory.

[Ender]

However, it should be noted that for some bizarre reason the nuke detonation was mostly (almost entirely probably) plasma, so I don't know how that influences things.

Maybe it had more plasma because of the higher mass of the stealth drone the bomb was placed in. More material to vaporize.

It is likely the result of the bomb design to get so high a yield. We do the same in real life - we use X-ray opaque materials to thermalize the photons to the infrared range so that they heat the next stage and trigger fusion in hydrogen bombs.

[Lord of the Abyss]

A little thinking later: If the plasma moves out in a vaguely cohesive shell, then you might get orders of magnitude more density.

Perhaps it was a shaped, directional blast ?

[Prozac the Robert]

Perhaps it was a shaped, directional blast ?

How shaped could it be? I don't really know anything about bomb design, but I'm finding it a bit unlikely that could could fire a cohesive wave of plasma in a small cone. If you could make it an arbitrarily small cone, or arbitrarily cohesive then you could get a potentially harmful density, but it seems to be stretching things a bit, especially it was described as a standard nuke.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Perhaps it was a shaped, directional blast ?

How shaped could it be? I don't really know anything about bomb design, but I'm finding it a bit unlikely that could could fire a cohesive wave of plasma in a small cone. If you could make it an arbitrarily small cone, or arbitrarily cohesive then you could get a potentially harmful density, but it seems to be stretching things a bit, especially it was described as a standard nuke.

Well, "energy torpedos" are discrete packets of plasma; they seem to be good at manipulating plasma. Yes, it's stretching things but "Weber is something of a nuke fetishist ( most of his novels seem to involve them, after all ) who tends to serious overestimate their power" doesn't qualify as an in-universe answer.

[HRogge]

Maybe the Honorverse somehow got an early readout of Sheridans "nuke of sufficient yield". That's why only the impeller/sidewall has a chance against them.

[Bookkeeper-At-Arms]

I don't think I've ever heard of a Sci-Fi Universe that Trek can beat... anyone got one?

Space: 1999. Star Trek forces could whomp all over Moonbase Alpha. Also the creative predecessor, UFO (a 1970 British series). And about half the alien hostiles in Doctor Who.

TOS was - for the limitations of the era it was made - a good series. TNG has ... shall we say a few flaws? DS9 was flaming donkey dung. And VOY completed the decay into compost. ENT was even worse.

But the seeds of greatness were there in the original. Star Trek could improve by getting out of the 1960's sci-fi paradigms and joining the rest of modern science fiction. That includes some attempt at technical and internal consistency, plus some degree of reality checking (you got military strategy in the show? Fine - get some real retired Admirals and Generals and veterans, ask them what's wrong.).

Actually, I think Star Trek could be salvaged.

[Master of Cards]

why post in here? DS9 was devent for Trek

[PhoenixVTam]

It should be noted that 200 megatons is a big Honorverse missile.

The missile you guys have been talking about was a specialized Solarian weapon described as being like, more of a stealth drone with a warhead on it than a proper shipkiller missile. Manticore used a more advanced implementation of the same concept in "At All Costs", and those had a bomb-pumped laser warhead of unspecified yield or a nuclear warhead "in the 200 megaton range".

Those drones are somewhat bigger than even all-up capital scale missiles, though, and they have one impeller drive instead of three seperate ones. I'd say it's pretty likely that regular missiles have a somewhat smaller warhead, like about 100-150 megatons or so.

Cruiser missiles on the other hand are explicitly specified to be 50-60 megatons:

[quote=Echoes of Honor]An attacker always knew exactly where it was, and that meant a single battlecruiser—probably even a heavy cruiser—could take out every weapon orbiting Hades with old-fashioned nuclear warheads launched on purely ballistic courses from beyond the defenses' own range. A few dozen fifty or sixty-megaton detonations would blow gaping holes in the massive, interlocking shells of mines, and not even modern hardening could have prevented the EMP from at least temporarily crippling the electronics of any spaceborne platform that survived outright destruction.[/quote]

[Uraniun235]

I don't think I've ever heard of a Sci-Fi Universe that Trek can beat... anyone got one?

B5 younger races for sure, and I think a hard case can be made for them curbstomping the First Ones as well (or at least the Vorlons and Shadows).

I'm not sure about "curbstomping" the First Ones, but yeah I think definitely Starfleet would tend to come out on top against the Younger Races.

The rag-tag fleet of nBSG yes, but the colonial fleet prior to it going down is highly debatable. Phasers and strategic mobility might make up for the difference though. Same for the Cylons.

If anyone has superior mobility, it's nBSG and their instantaneous jump drives; although, there does appear to be a moment of reorientation in which it takes Colonial ships a short time to figure out just where they are and what's around them, so jumping smack in the middle of an enemy fleet is probably a bad idea. On the other hand, it's alluded that nBSG lacks FTL communications, so Starfleet still has a chance to outmanuever the Colonial fleet.

Ultimately, given how much Colonial forces are fighter-centric (to say nothing of how dependent the Cylon Basestars are on their Raider swarms) it really comes down to how much damage a bunch of fighters could do and how charitable you're feeling with regard to Starfleet's ability to shoot the fighters down, ranging from "shredding them effortlessly" to "firing blind and hoping we get lucky".

Really, Trek is a decent middle ground universe. Pretty speedy FTL, comms, a decent rescource base, megaton (single digit to low double digit) missiles and TW range energy weapons, mid double megaton range shields, and some nice exotic tech. The only reason it consistently looks bad is because rabid fanboys try and move it well out of its weightclass because they are convinced of its superiority because they are fans, rather then because they look at it hard.

When have we seen megaton-class photon torpedoes?

[Stormbringer]

It should be noted that 200 megatons is a big Honorverse missile.

The size reference to the missle in AoV is about the phsyical size of the missle far more than the warhead. As you mentioned, they talk about the missle's origins as a recon drone far more than any mentions about the warhead.

It's a fair bet that 200 megatons is probably equivalent to the missle of a ship of the wall. The missle was originally meant to take out capital warships, so the sizing of the warhead would logically be in the same firepower range. That number certainly represents the upper ceiling on the sort of weapons used but it's by no means an uncommonly large warhead.

[PhoenixVTam]

It's a fair bet that 200 megatons is probably equivalent to the missle of a ship of the wall. The missle was originally meant to take out capital warships, so the sizing of the warhead would logically be in the same firepower range. That number certainly represents the upper ceiling on the sort of weapons used but it's by no means an uncommonly large warhead.

I'll conceed my reasoning here is a bit convoluted and certainly not conclusive, but there *is* some indication that capship missiles are weaker than that. In "The Short Victorious War", bomb-pumped laser mines are described as producing beams "each more powerful than any missile laser head could generate", and in "In Enemy Hands", nuclear mines are explicitly stated to be a hundred megatons each.

Although laser mines being more powerful than laser missiles doesn't prove that nuke mines are more powerful than nuke missiles, this at least *implies* that capital grade missles are around that firepower range -- at least the older single stage ones. We know for certain that Havenite MDMs have considerably bigger warheads than Manticoran ones; it's not clear whether or not a Manticoran MDM uses the same warhead as SDMs or a larger one.

[The Dark]

I'll conceed my reasoning here is a bit convoluted and certainly not conclusive, but there *is* some indication that capship missiles are weaker than that. In "The Short Victorious War", bomb-pumped laser mines are described as producing beams "each more powerful than any missile laser head could generate", and in "In Enemy Hands", nuclear mines are explicitly stated to be a hundred megatons each.

Although laser mines being more powerful than laser missiles doesn't prove that nuke mines are more powerful than nuke missiles, this at least *implies* that capital grade missles are around that firepower range -- at least the older single stage ones. We know for certain that Havenite MDMs have considerably bigger warheads than Manticoran ones; it's not clear whether or not a Manticoran MDM uses the same warhead as SDMs or a larger one.

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.

[PhoenixVTam]

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."

That's a standard bomb-pumped laser warhead; the fact that both single-drive missiles and the newer multiple-drive missiles are tipped with those doesn't mean they're all the same size and power output. He *does* explicitly mention that Havenite MDMs have considerably bigger and more powerful warheads than Manticoran ones in order to compensate for their lower hit probability.

[The Dark]

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."

That's a standard bomb-pumped laser warhead; the fact that both single-drive missiles and the newer multiple-drive missiles are tipped with those doesn't mean they're all the same size and power output. He *does* explicitly mention that Havenite MDMs have considerably bigger and more powerful warheads than Manticoran ones in order to compensate for their lower hit probability.

Gah. Grabbed the wrong quote.

"In many ways, the MSM is simply the capital missile writ large. It delivers the same terminal payload and has very similar ECM and pen aids." - Oct 29, 1998

[PhoenixVTam]

"In many ways, the MSM is simply the capital missile writ large. It delivers the same terminal payload and has very similar ECM and pen aids." - Oct 29, 1998

Excellent. That of course only applies to Manticoran missiles; Havenite ones are explicitly stated to have bigger, more powerful warheads.

[Master of Cards]

"In many ways, the MSM is simply the capital missile writ large. It delivers the same terminal payload and has very similar ECM and pen aids." - Oct 29, 1998

Excellent. That of course only applies to Manticoran missiles; Havenite ones are explicitly stated to have bigger, more powerful warheads.

Then Mantie ones, thats across the board because Haven trades its suck in Aiming by adding very heavy warheads