Halo weapon yields?

[ChosenOne54]

It's difficult to keep track of the weapon yields in Halo because of the retcons and Halo: Reach and the like, so I'm just wondering what the current yields are for the following weapons:

UNSC:
-MAC gun
-Shiva Nuke
-Archer missile

Covenant:
-Plasma torpedo
-Energy projector

Thanks.

[gamer]

A MAC cannon fires a 600 ton slug at 30000 m/sec.

A SuperMac cannon fires a 3000 ton slug at 12000km/sec.

The Nova Bomb the UNSC's most powerful weapon was detonated in the midst of a fleet close to the planet Joyous Exultation, it scorched one quarter of the planet's surface due to a high concentration of thermal energy inside the planet's atmosphere; it also shattered a nearby moon.

The other weapons I have no solid number for so I can't really tell you.

[ChosenOne54]

Long tons or short tons?

[gamer]

Long tons or short tons?

It's not specifically stated but I think its short tons. Also the Nova Bomb has a yield calculated to be about 1.2 Petatons.

[ChosenOne54]

Well, unless my math is wrong (which is quite possible), 600 short tons is about 544,310.84 kg.

Now, entering that into here:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/kineticenergycalc.html

You get 139878000000 joules, or 139.878 gigajoules for a regular MAC cannon.

Which isn't even a single kiloton?

[Agent Sorchus]

Reach disproves all of those high end calcs though. (And as I remember it the canon system for Halo is that the newest overrides the oldest. Disappointing for Halo fanboys certainly, but not like I care.) Link to the last time this came up. Basically there never was any indication that high end calcs were right, and that characters in universe even note that the term glassing is wrong and that power levels are suspect.

Regarding "glassing". In the version that came Halsey's journal, written by Eric Nylund I believe, Halsey mentions that glassing isn't an accurate term. It's also mentioned in one entry from 2549 that they didn't know if the Covenant completely glassed the surface of a planet or only went after vital points of resistance. Mind you this is a fair while after the war started. There also seems to be an issue with power generation on covenant ships as suspected. She comments that she was able to watch most of the destruction of Arcadia via a repurposed weather satelite and that if the Covenant ships could keep up the level of power used indefinitely, that there would be no space battles at all. Its also noted that this was a larger than normal fleet and the second time the planet was attacked*. I wander if it could be a fuel limitation.

Well, unless my math is wrong (which is quite possible), 600 short tons is about 544,310.84 kg.

Now, entering that into here:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/kineticenergycalc.html

You get 139878000000 joules, or 139.878 gigajoules for a regular MAC cannon.

Which isn't even a single kiloton?

Which is about right for the energy shown during Reach.

[ChosenOne54]

I guess this is true. I mean, just looking at the scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nwuaydvwd0#t=16s

The speaker at the beginning of the video even says "orbital defense standing by the take the shot," or something along those lines. If that's an orbital defense cannon firing, then the numbers for the supermac are way off.

[Sarevok]

Which is even less if you take actual Halo games into consideration. As seen in Halo : Reach the firepower of Haloverse capship weaponry is barely stronger than a 15 inch battleship gun.

[ChosenOne54]

Which is even less if you take actual Halo games into consideration. As seen in Halo : Reach the firepower of Haloverse capship weaponry is barely stronger than a 15 inch battleship gun.

Where was that shown?

[takemeout_totheblack]

Well, unless my math is wrong (which is quite possible), 600 short tons is about 544,310.84 kg.

Now, entering that into here:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/kineticenergycalc.html

You get 139878000000 joules, or 139.878 gigajoules for a regular MAC cannon.

Which isn't even a single kiloton?

I think you may have dropped a couple zeroes here and there. Because using the SDN main site's KE calculator I got 244.9 terajoules for short tons and 270 terajoules for metric tons, or 58.5 kilotons and 64.5 kilotons respectively. This is for 544,310kgs and 600,000kgs moving at 30,000 m/s.

[ChosenOne54]

Well, unless my math is wrong (which is quite possible), 600 short tons is about 544,310.84 kg.

Now, entering that into here:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/kineticenergycalc.html

You get 139878000000 joules, or 139.878 gigajoules for a regular MAC cannon.

Which isn't even a single kiloton?

I think you may have dropped a couple zeroes here and there. Because using the SDN main site's KE calculator I got 244.9 terajoules for short tons and 270 terajoules for metric tons, or 58.5 kilotons and 64.5 kilotons respectively. This is for 544,310kgs and 600,000kgs moving at 30,000 m/s.

Ah, sounds more reasonable given the numbers. Though I do wonder where they got the 30,000 m/s speed from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nwuaydvwd0#t=24s

It doesn't really look to be extremely fast in this cutscene.

[takemeout_totheblack]

Ah, sounds more reasonable given the numbers. Though I do wonder where they got the 30,000 m/s speed from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nwuaydvwd0#t=24s

It doesn't really look to be extremely fast in this cutscene.

Yeah, I know. I'm not defending the series, just pointing out a numbers flub.

As for the cutscene, I'm either mistaking this for another game *cough*MassEffect*cough* but I think I remember there being a blurb somewhere about written stats superseding game visuals. I.E. the part where 5 and 6 are heroically pulverized by the multi-kiloton explosion that occurred less than a kilometer away and the game ending there wouldn't be conducive to story-telling. But I could be mistaken.

[ChosenOne54]

Ah, sounds more reasonable given the numbers. Though I do wonder where they got the 30,000 m/s speed from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nwuaydvwd0#t=24s

It doesn't really look to be extremely fast in this cutscene.

Yeah, I know. I'm not defending the series, just pointing out a numbers flub.

As for the cutscene, I'm either mistaking this for another game *cough*MassEffect*cough* but I think I remember there being a blurb somewhere about written stats superseding game visuals. I.E. the part where 5 and 6 are heroically pulverized by the multi-kiloton explosion that occurred less than a kilometer away and the game ending there wouldn't be conducive to story-telling. But I could be mistaken.

No, I'm pretty certain, at least when it comes to Halo, the games supersede the novels and other media. There's also a policy of new > old, and Reach is the newest source.

I'll try to find the link.

[Srelex]

Didn't Reach also give us hurricane-sized detonations at one point? I mean hell, for things like the MAC scenes I suppose you could just say they were dialling it down.

[ChosenOne54]

Didn't Reach also give us hurricane-sized detonations at one point? I mean hell, for things like the MAC scenes I suppose you could just say they were dialling it down.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... assing.jpg

This it?

Even still, I think the energy projector was said to be double or triple digit kilotons per second.

[Sarevok]

Which is even less if you take actual Halo games into consideration. As seen in Halo : Reach the firepower of Haloverse capship weaponry is barely stronger than a 15 inch battleship gun.

Where was that shown?

The guns on the UNSC frigate were weaker than a WW 2 battleship.

This is what Pointe Du Hoc looks like today, over 60 years after it was bomardment by battleships.



And the Covenant supercarrier ? That blast looked positively tiny compared even compared to a crappy Pakistani made anti ship cruise missile.

If a UNSC ship in atmosphere were hit by a Harpoon or Exocet with conventional explosive warhead it's going down. A P-700 with nuclear warhead would wipe out an entire fleet of UNSC or Covenant ships.

[Srelex]

To play devil's advocate...

The guns on the UNSC frigate were weaker than a WW 2 battleship.

This is what Pointe Du Hoc looks like today, over 60 years after it was bomardment by battleships.

But why would they need staggering amounts of firepower to destroy a target the size of an office block?

And the Covenant supercarrier ? That blast looked positively tiny compared even compared to a crappy Pakistani made anti ship cruise missile.
[/youtube]

Why do we have to measure the effect by the explosive effects? It's a beam weapon. Surely it'd be more sensible to try and evaluate it on temperature/cutting power?

This it?

Even still, I think the energy projector was said to be double or triple digit kilotons per second.

I meant this.

[ChosenOne54]

I meant this.

I tink that ties in with the whole 'Covenant can't glass planets' thing Dr. Halsey talked about.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4&t=144903

Apparently they use a combination of slipspace ruptures and energy projectors (or something like that), because they don't have the capabilities to simply glass a planet themselves.

[Sarevok]

To play devil's advocate...

The guns on the UNSC frigate were weaker than a WW 2 battleship.

This is what Pointe Du Hoc looks like today, over 60 years after it was bomardment by battleships.

But why would they need staggering amounts of firepower to destroy a target the size of an office block?

Well you would have a point there is this was an isolated incident. But it's not. The other time we saw UNSC ships fire while in atmosphere (Halo 3) it was just as unimpressive.

And to top it off we have the damning case of the frigate itself popping to an explosion weaker than what modern explosives could do. That was a Covenant energy projector, one of the strongest weapons in halo verse and definitely far more powerful than a ship mounted MAC.

[ChosenOne54]

If they had to dial down the power of the MAC, why didn't they use any other weapon? Like an archer missile?

[Covenant]

The reaction from the soldiers seems to confirm that this was an expected-yield MAC round as well. They didn't go "That's it?" Of course maybe they would have, if the ship hadn't been headshot a moment later by a purple sine wave.

I mean, it's possible the thing has Dial-A-Payload capability, but exactly as said, even if this was an extremely low yield shot... why not use any secondary weapons? Like ship-to-ship missile equivalents? That's a pretty big craft. And I have no idea if it's normally used SSTO or not so maybe this is the first time they've had to think about this, but it sounds like MAC rounds "in atmosphere" are odd, so presumably it had to have another form of firepower that isn't unusual in atmosphere, right?

If this was dialed down to 50% usual yield, this is a pretty poor showing. I'd say that even at 10% yield it's pretty unimpressive, and it again raises the questions of "don't you have any other form of weaponry to use?" And why so close?

The supposed MAC round didn't even overpenetrate, splinter, or knock over the target. It just kinda blew it up and the thing fell apart. I don't know what kind of material properties could explain that range of non-behavior unless the MAC weapon itself is just rather unimpressive ordinance.

Same complaints about the zorch-beam from above. It doesn't vaporize the target, it just blows right through it with surprisingly little fanfare and then a secondary explosion takes out the rear section. It's not even white-hot at the beam's exit. Maybe the top is slagged all to hell, but we don't get much evidence of massive thermal blooming effects coming off this thing. Again, maybe they dialed down the yield, but why? A nuke would cause thermal effects of tremendously larger magnitude, so we know what to look for, and we're really not seeing it.

So thermally, not much going on that I see. If you want to measure the cutting power it's important to first understand the materials used to cut through. If we'd have seen it burning into the dirt we could have gotten a bit more evidence but it doesn't look like it had to 'cut' through the frigate at all. It was just through it pretty much instantly. So it could be anything from being super-awesome cutting magic beam tech or it could be that the USNC uses plastics for armor with ceramic tiles on the outside for heat mitigation.

[Srelex]

If they had to dial down the power of the MAC, why didn't they use any other weapon? Like an archer missile?

Can you dial the yield for an Archer missile? From the sounds of it they're basically nukes, and I'd say simply turning down the MAC power would be easier than fiddling with warheads.

[Covenant]

If they had to dial down the power of the MAC, why didn't they use any other weapon? Like an archer missile?

Can you dial the yield for an Archer missile? From the sounds of it they're basically nukes, and I'd say simply turning down the MAC power would be easier than fiddling with warheads.

I checked some of the other cutscenes. Craft that look very similar to the one that gets persploded seem to have several machinegun-style weapons that they use in combat too, if nothing else for point defense. If a nuke would be too big, why not rake it with cannon fire instead of turning this gobsmackingly powerful railgun into a point-blank pea-shooter? It seems contrived. The simplest and most consistent response is that the yield from the MAC cannon is simply lower than people would have you believe.

[ChosenOne54]

Archer missiles, nukes? Do we have any reliable numbers on them? Because the MAC cannon is pretty much stated to be the most powerful UNSC ship-to-ship weapon (far more powerful than archer missiles), and it is only in the low kiloton range, archer missiles can't be in the kiloton range.

[Srelex]

Archer missiles, nukes? Do we have any reliable numbers on them? Because the MAC cannon is pretty much stated to be the most powerful UNSC ship-to-ship weapon (far more powerful than archer missiles), and it is only in the low kiloton range, archer missiles can't be in the kiloton range.

Looking at this image, you can see nuclear signs on the plates. Seems a pretty solid sign.