Nuclear weapon effect question

[Darth Wong]

Awesome. Only thing is, can you make it so you can enter values below 1 kiloton? Because my STGOD infantry uses sub-kiloton tac nukes.

How far below 1 kiloton?

The nuclear grenades are 5 ton yield.

What? That's less powerful than a daisy-cutter or a MOAB!

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

The nuclear grenades are 5 ton yield.

What? That's less powerful than a daisy-cutter or a MOAB!

But they're fired from underslung grenade launchers. Designed for anti-personnel, because everyone's ground forces has armor too strong for frag grenades. Even with 5 tons, you have to be a few hundred meters away, right?

You'd probably be the best person to ask though, what's a more realistic yield for a 40 mm nuclear grenade? Currently I have the 5 ton grenades, 50 ton shaped charge anti-tank launchers, 250 ton 100 mm mortars, and kiloton-range heavy artillery. Is this too weak? Too strong? Some too weak and others too strong?

[Darth Wong]

With such small charges, you should probably be looking at explosive effects data for conventional weapons.

[Sea Skimmer]

You'd probably be the best person to ask though, what's a more realistic yield for a 40 mm nuclear grenade? Currently I have the 5 ton grenades, 50 ton shaped charge anti-tank launchers, 250 ton 100 mm mortars, and kiloton-range heavy artillery. Is this too weak? Too strong? Some too weak and others too strong?

Realistic yield for a nuclear 40mm grenade would be nil. You cannot get critical mass from a device that small.

[Sea Skimmer]

Question

If you can drill that far down through scitech armor, why do you need the bomb at all? Just keep drilling until you go right INTO the command centre and some TNT would do the trick!

No actually it wont. That might knock out one room or chamber but that's it. As I've mentioned about five times so far, today we already have examples of bunker complexes spanning 400 square kilometers under a mountain range. You simply can't destroy such a thing attacking each section individually.

This weapon also doesn't have much in the way of armor penetration, just rock. It defeats armor and heavy protection by sending a massive shockwave into it. It burrows to increase the effectiveness of that shockwave.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

You'd probably be the best person to ask though, what's a more realistic yield for a 40 mm nuclear grenade? Currently I have the 5 ton grenades, 50 ton shaped charge anti-tank launchers, 250 ton 100 mm mortars, and kiloton-range heavy artillery. Is this too weak? Too strong? Some too weak and others too strong?

Realistic yield for a nuclear 40mm grenade would be nil. You cannot get critical mass from a device that small.

Hmm, I guess they should be M/AM grenades then. What's a realistic yield for a 40 mm M/AM grenade carrying roughly the same mass as a standard US Army grenade, assuming efficiency roughly on par with with modern fission/thermonuke devices? Once I know that, I should be able to extrapolate values for the rocket launchers, mortars, and artie.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hmm, I guess they should be M/AM grenades then. What's a realistic yield for a 40 mm M/AM grenade carrying roughly the same mass as a standard US Army grenade, assuming efficiency roughly on par with with modern fission/thermonuke devices? Once I know that, I should be able to extrapolate values for the rocket launchers, mortars, and artie.

If you opt for anti matter weapons, expect counter battery fire to decimate your forces. Really I think all your ground forces are insanely over powered. If your going to fight with that much firepower then maneuver battles simply wont happen, in which case an army has little point and simply bombarding everything into oblivion from orbit will work just as well.

Everyone else seems to be regarding low level usage tactical nuclear weapons as being very potent weapons, while your issuing them to every solider. Light fragments might not kill peoples infantry, but so what? That just means you kill them with direct fire or a heavy mortar bomb. No big deal.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

If you opt for anti matter weapons, expect counter battery fire to decimate your forces. Really I think all your ground forces are insanely over powered. If your going to fight with that much firepower then maneuver battles simply wont happen, in which case an army has little point and simply bombarding everything into oblivion from orbit will work just as well.

Everyone else seems to be regarding low level usage tactical nuclear weapons as being very potent weapons, while your issuing them to every solider. Light fragments might not kill peoples infantry, but so what? That just means you kill them with direct fire or a heavy mortar bomb. No big deal.

You're right. I still want a grenade that can be effective against armored troops, though. Maybe a plasma nade that's only lethal 3 meters out.

What's the least amount of mass that could fission, anyway? If nothing else, I still like the idea of shaped-charge nuclear artie rounds to counter people with giant robots or huge supertanks.

[Sea Skimmer]

You're right. I still want a grenade that can be effective against armored troops, though. Maybe a plasma nade that's only lethal 3 meters out.

What's the least amount of mass that could fission, anyway? If nothing else, I still like the idea of shaped-charge nuclear artie rounds to counter people with giant robots or huge supertanks.

A shaped charge nuclear round cannot work. With a shaped charge you need the blast to be in a cone around a smaller metal cone of some sort. However a nuclear blast will be originating from one point, not to mention it will just vaporize the metal, rather then melting and projecting it. Anti matter would do the same. Just use a big mobile particle beam cannon, its what I did. That and chucking around very large nuclear bombs. As for minimal critical mass, 10.5 kilograms of Pu-239 will do it, using U-235 you need 52 kilograms.

The smallest nuke ever built was 51 pounds, a Davy Crocket warhead. One test yielded 18 tons and another 22. In theory you might be able to build a nuke that was only 60 x 40 x 20 centimeters and yielded 10 tons. It would still weigh something like 40-50 pounds though.

The Russians at one point claimed to have a nuke that small, but as it turned out they where much larger and weighed about 150 pounds. Not really a suitcase weapon, but it could fit inside a big piece of luggage.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

A shaped charge nuclear round cannot work. With a shaped charge you need the blast to be in a cone around a smaller metal cone of some sort. However a nuclear blast will be originating from one point, not to mention it will just vaporize the metal, rather then melting and projecting it. Anti matter would do the same. Just use a big mobile particle beam cannon, its what I did.

Then it wouldn't be indirect fire. If you're going to have a direct fire weapon, it should be on a tank so it doesn't get blown away easily.

That and chucking around very large nuclear bombs. As for minimal critical mass, 10.5 kilograms of Pu-239 will do it, using U-235 you need 52 kilograms.

The smallest nuke ever built was 51 pounds, a Davy Crocket warhead. One test yielded 18 tons and another 22. In theory you might be able to build a nuke that was only 60 x 40 x 20 centimeters and yielded 10 tons. It would still weigh something like 40-50 pounds though.

Ahh, OK, so 40 mm nuke grenades and nuke rocket launchers are out, but mortars could still work. Or is a 50 pound projectile too much for a mortar?

The Russians at one point claimed to have a nuke that small, but as it turned out they where much larger and weighed about 150 pounds. Not really a suitcase weapon, but it could fit inside a big piece of luggage.

Thanks for the info.

[Sea Skimmer]

Ahh, OK, so 40 mm nuke grenades and nuke rocket launchers are out, but mortars could still work. Or is a 50 pound projectile too much for a mortar?

You can easily fire a 50 pound bomb from a mortar. However you'd need a 400mm weapon to use a nuke, such a weapon would be quite huge. Hears a picture of short ranged 305mm mortars on a fixed mounts.

http://johnjgobbell.com/fp_last_pics_12.htm

This is of the German Karl mortar, which mounted a 600 and later 540mm mortar also with fairly short range. Don't let the tracks fool you, this thing could only go 3.5mph and only used the tracks to aim.

http://www.geocities.com/ssvong/morser/karl_hist.htm

[Darth Wong]

You should keep in mind a few points:

1) M/AM is a foolish idea in a grenade; the need for containment systems to prevent spontaneous reaction would mean that an armoury might spontaneously explode at any time. All it takes is a single containment system in one of the grenades to fail. The engineering risk assessment of such a scheme would be quick and brutal.

2) Fission warheads cannot be reduced to grenade size, but it would be theoretically possible to make a nuke of arbitrarily low yield if you use a laser-initiated fusion device. This presumes the ability to build tiny ultra-miniaturized high-powered lasers with power supplies into a grenade, which would require a great deal of sophisticated technology. Not really worth it, I'd say.

3) Super-yield grenades are a silly idea because there's a limit to how far a human can throw a grenade. Also, Sea Skimmer's objections to overpowered weapons are a bit of a showstopper; if the weapons are too powerful, armies would never be able to get close to one another.

[Sea Skimmer]

1) M/AM is a foolish idea in a grenade; the need for containment systems to prevent spontaneous reaction would mean that an armoury might spontaneously explode at any time. All it takes is a single containment system in one of the grenades to fail. The engineering risk assessment of such a scheme would be quick and brutal.

Makes things fun when I drop a tac nuke on the dumps though.

3) Super-yield grenades are a silly idea because there's a limit to how far a human can throw a grenade. Also, Sea Skimmer's objections to overpowered weapons are a bit of a showstopper; if the weapons are too powerful, armies would never be able to get close to one another.

More like they simply wont exist in a meaningful form, just take a look at US forces in West German in the 60's, a thin shell of Calvary and infantry whose main task was just to watch the boarder in peacetime, and a huge fuckload of tactical nuclear bombs running well in to the thousands that would be used by small teams with jeeps.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

You should keep in mind a few points:

1) M/AM is a foolish idea in a grenade; the need for containment systems to prevent spontaneous reaction would mean that an armoury might spontaneously explode at any time. All it takes is a single containment system in one of the grenades to fail. The engineering risk assessment of such a scheme would be quick and brutal.

2) Fission warheads cannot be reduced to grenade size, but it would be theoretically possible to make a nuke of arbitrarily low yield if you use a laser-initiated fusion device. This presumes the ability to build tiny ultra-miniaturized high-powered lasers with power supplies into a grenade, which would require a great deal of sophisticated technology. Not really worth it, I'd say.

And it's beyond the tech level of the STGOD, anyway.

3) Super-yield grenades are a silly idea because there's a limit to how far a human can throw a grenade. Also, Sea Skimmer's objections to overpowered weapons are a bit of a showstopper; if the weapons are too powerful, armies would never be able to get close to one another.

They were supposed to be fired from a nade launcher, nuclear hand grenades would be retarded. I can see the objection to weapons that are too powerful, but given the prevelance of giant shielded tanks and robots in other peoples' armies, I didn't really see how to combat that short of orbital strikes (which often isn't an option) or nuclear weapons. Declaring my own "supertanks" was out of the question, given my low opinion of them.

[Sea Skimmer]

They were supposed to be fired from a nade launcher, nuclear hand grenades would be retarded. I can see the objection to weapons that are too powerful, but given the prevelance of giant shielded tanks and robots in other peoples' armies, I didn't really see how to combat that short of orbital strikes (which often isn't an option) or nuclear weapons. Declaring my own "supertanks" was out of the question, given my low opinion of them.

I counted precisely one shielded ground unit

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

They were supposed to be fired from a nade launcher, nuclear hand grenades would be retarded. I can see the objection to weapons that are too powerful, but given the prevelance of giant shielded tanks and robots in other peoples' armies, I didn't really see how to combat that short of orbital strikes (which often isn't an option) or nuclear weapons. Declaring my own "supertanks" was out of the question, given my low opinion of them.

I counted precisely one shielded ground unit

Nobody besides Seggybop had uberwank tanks and mecha? I could have sworn... Oh well. If no one's using supertanks, there's no reason for my ground forces to be using nuclear weapons.

[Sea Skimmer]

I counted precisely one shielded ground unit

Nobody besides Seggybop had uberwank tanks and mecha? I could have sworn... Oh well. If no one's using supertanks, there's no reason for my ground forces to be using nuclear weapons.

His was the only I saw, and I've read every order of battle several times. Most people don't have declared ground forces though.