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Master of Ossus wrote:
In addition, a torpedo-sized nuke might be more expensive to produce, it would require a separate storage from the warp-fuel, it would be difficult to store safely, and might cause environmental or ethical concerns for the UFP.

Nuclear weapons need a couple shelves in a climate-controlled room. In such they last for years with minimal maintenance, can't possibly detonate and only have pollution problems if someone decides to smash them into pieces and grind the U-235 into dust. I'd expect an accidental antimatter explosion would be considerable worse.

Devising an automatic system to put them together before dropping the warhead into a missile would be easy. There electromagnetic containment systems for anti matter would almost certainly take-up more mass and power.

Alyeska wrote:In Trek accuracy is fairly important. Especially when your weapons are directed explossions. You miss and your fucked. Second, an ICBM is a huge fucking rocket.

Yes, you are correct. But, ICBM's have the capability of being detonated. In fact, nuclear strategy of today is in fact that a nuke would be detonated rather than blown on impact. Nuclear weapons are also referred to as small suns, because that is what they are. I also point out, again, that nukes are far more effective in space. So, I only say that a nuke, coupled with advances that will be made in 200-300 years, with a softball size neutron source that could destroy a city, could and should be used.

Edit, fixed quotes
-Alyeska

spaceluigi wrote:In Trek accuracy is fairly important. Especially when your weapons are directed explossions. You miss and your fucked. Second, an ICBM is a huge fucking rocket.

Yes, you are correct. But, ICBM's have the capability of being detonated. In fact, nuclear strategy of today is in fact that a nuke would be detonated rather than blown on impact. Nuclear weapons are also referred to as small suns, because that is what they are. I also point out, again, that nukes are far more effective in space. So, I only say that a nuke, coupled with advances that will be made in 200-300 years, with a softball size neutron source that could destroy a city, could and should be used.[/quote]

*bonks a red koopa shell off of your thick skull*
the advances of the past 200-300 years rendered nukes obsolete in favor of antimatter in the form of photon and quantum torps.

Yes, you are correct. But, ICBM's have the capability of being detonated. In fact, nuclear strategy of today is in fact that a nuke would be detonated rather than blown on impact. Nuclear weapons are also referred to as small suns, because that is what they are. I also point out, again, that nukes are far more effective in space. So, I only say that a nuke, coupled with advances that will be made in 200-300 years, with a softball size neutron source that could destroy a city, could and should be used.

No, actually. Current designs use up their material with more then 99% efficiency. You can't get bigger blasts out the stuff. Nor could you ever get critical mass out of something the size of a softball.

IF you can substantially reduce the cost of producing antimatter, and IF you can also miniaturize lightweight, reliable containment systems, then it makes sense to use antimatter torpedos instead of nuclear warheads on a spaceship, as it saves both space and mass (especially considering the weapon can draw from the ship's fuel supply to power its warhead), reducing the target profile of the ship/and or inceasing space available for propellant storage, and getting more acceleration out of a given mass of propellant. Of course, this logic breaks down on Trek ships that give individual crewmen cabins the size of hotel rooms and are filled with wasted, empty space and useless systems like holodecks and carpeting in the corridors, but it still allows them to fit a more powerful warhead in a smaller package that needs lighter launch systems and can maneuver for longer once fired than a nuclear missile would.

Quantity of uranium required for a 1 megaton blast at 100% efficiency: ~47 kg.

A softball-sized nuke won't give you a megaton, folks. And switching to fusion, while more efficient on paper, still leaves the problem of creating initial fusion conditions, which requires a fission bomb. Fusion/fission bombs, contrary to popular belief, still rely on fission for a large fraction of their yield.

In Trek accuracy is fairly important. Especially when your weapons are directed explossions. You miss and your fucked. Second, an ICBM is a huge fucking rocket.

Yes, you are correct. But, ICBM's have the capability of being detonated. In fact, nuclear strategy of today is in fact that a nuke would be detonated rather than blown on impact. Nuclear weapons are also referred to as small suns, because that is what they are. I also point out, again, that nukes are far more effective in space. So, I only say that a nuke, coupled with advances that will be made in 200-300 years, with a softball size neutron source that could destroy a city, could and should be used.

What are you talking about? How can you form a nuclear warhead out of a uranium mass the size of a softball? Moreover, how could such a TINY warhead (assuming it could actually detonate) be powerful enough to destroy a city?

WOULD YOU PEOPLE MIND FIXING THE FRIGGIN' QUOTES?

Jeez. I'm getting sick of reading this misquoted mess, which usually starts when somebody deletes an opening quote tag and forgets they did so.

Photon torpedoes also have the advantage that they are extremely easy to restock starships with; just beam over a couple hundred casings and refuel the ship. The ship arms torpedoes with it's own antimatter fuel.

You don't have cargo ships loaded with very dangerous (and very tempting for any hostile forces) ordnance needed to restock starships; by doing so you can consolidate your escort missions around the AM tenders that service Starfleet vessels.

Finally, as Wong pointed out, fusion still requires a fission starter. Fission takes metals that have to be mined out of planets/asteroids. Starfleet already has a relatively sizeable system producing AM fuel for their starships.

Kenny_10_Bellys wrote:I also point out again that in Trek's future, there's plenty of resources and power to do what the hell they like, planet loads of it. And once again I point out that a nuke went off a few hundered metres from the Ent-nil with it's shields up and all it did was piss them off. Looks like nukes aren't up to the job against shielded targets in their century, doesn't it.

Yes, this episode indicates small nuclear warheads are not up to the task, so the Federation could build large warheads-complete with massive delivery systems-or build much smaller antimatter warheads for the same punch. There may be safety concerns, but Federation ships are loaded with antimatter anyway, why not use it?