Dropping Rocks from Orbit, A Seeker vs. a TL 7-8 (or less) nation

[sandman]

Originally posted by Jame:
Does Traveller have gravitic mass drivers, like David Weber's Honor Harrington does? Use one to accelerate a rock to 0.999c and watch the fireworks!

Your LP's skipping, Jame...

 

[Jame]

Sandman, if my LP is the posting thing here, then it's because my computer got too slow - I got impatient and hit the post button three times. If it's anything else, I need it explained.

The difference between one ship dropping rocks on a tl7/8 world and a tl5 culture conquering a tl2 culture is that the tl5 culture is on the continent with troops, settlers and transport and manufacturing centers, along with the ability to close with the enemy and learn the terrain.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Jame:
Sandman, if my LP is the posting thing here, then it's because my computer got too slow - I got impatient and hit the post button three times. If it's anything else, I need it explained.

LPs as in "Long Play" or Vinyl disks

By the way you can delete your duplicate post by selecting the "edit post" icon (small notepad with pencil) and selecting "Delete Post? (check box, if yes) ".

 

[Jame]

Oh yeah, those vinyl disc things. Didn't know that they were called "LPs" until long after they ceased production.

Anyway, my question should be modified: Does Traveller have any equivalent to HH's gravitic drivers, or at least something that can accellerate a missile/rock/whatever to more than 0.1c?

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Jame:
Anyway, my question should be modified: Does Traveller have any equivalent to HH's gravitic drivers, or at least something that can accellerate a missile/rock/whatever to more than 0.1c?

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they are mnentioned on the LSP, 5kton MP ship in "beltstrike!" boxed adventure.They were used as the detrius launchtube. The MP ship(mining platform) was non jump, had 2G drives, and could accomodat 20Buggies/ and 10 Seekers docked to her.
the mag lev "gun" shot sternwards. She had ten pulse lasers for carving up big asteroids (in turrets).
A Non jump vessel, they were either built in system, or jumped here by tender/ shuttle, and worked the system till scrapped.
Second place I saw them mentioned was in Alternate technologies chapter in MT/"Hard Times"

TNE's FF& S gives a good table for their construction. AT TL-8, they have a velocity of 3000m/ second. they max at TL-12, at 6,000m per second. Ya can build em to fire any size projectile. I have seen TNE versions of these as grav tank weapons (Solomani ones, using kinetic kill projection vs Trepida type armor). Nasty to have a 100mm projectile shot this way.(TL-12 Gauss Tank round, essentially. OWWW!)

 

[Jame]

Um, how fast in Gs is 6,000mps?

 

[Liam Devlin]

39" = 1 meter, x 6Km= 234,000 inches/or 19,500' a second

divided by 5280 ( 1 mile) '= 3.69 miles a second.
x 60 seconds( 1 minute)= 221.40 miles a minute.
x60 minutes (1 hr)= 13, 284 miles an hour. SLightly slower than the SHuttle Columbia re-entering at 18k mph/ Mach 17. Call it mach 13.

there ya go Ser jame! Joules of energy behind it depends on the homopolar generator MW's powering the weapon, and barrel length of maglev projector. (FF&S)

 

[womble]

Or in metric, speed of sound at sea level is roughly 330m/s, so about Mach 18

In G's it's meaningless since G's are a measure of acceleration At one G (10m/s/s), though, it'd take 600 seconds to get to 6000 m/s. 5 minutes @ 2G, 2annahalf @ 4G etc.

If your linacc is a kilometre long (and my math is right...*), you'd need to be pushing the projectile at 1800G (it'd take a third of a second to go from rest to 6000m/s)... 10 klicks and you're down to 180G.

* I may have flunked basic Newtonian physics, just now. Please point and laugh at my algebra...

 

[womble]

And a 100kg projectile at 6000m/s will have an energy of 1/2 x 100 x 6000^2 = 1,800,000,000 1.8 GJ For a 3s launch that's a power output of 600MW How much you have to put into the launcher depends on the efficiency. 30% would be generous, so let's say you'd need to draw 2GW from the national grid to hurl that crowbar. For 3s.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by womble:
And a 100kg projectile at 6000m/s will have an energy of 1/2 x 100 x 6000^2 = 1,800,000,000 1.8 GJ For a 3s launch that's a power output of 600MW How much you have to put into the launcher depends on the efficiency. 30% would be generous, so let's say you'd need to draw 2GW from the national grid to hurl that crowbar. For 3s.

But I'd be a Mighty Destructive Crowbar

 

[lightsenshi]

Originally posted by Sandman:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by womble:
And a 100kg projectile at 6000m/s will have an energy of 1/2 x 100 x 6000^2 = 1,800,000,000 1.8 GJ For a 3s launch that's a power output of 600MW How much you have to put into the launcher depends on the efficiency. 30% would be generous, so let's say you'd need to draw 2GW from the national grid to hurl that crowbar. For 3s.

But I'd be a Mighty Destructive Crowbar </font>[/QUOTE]"Tell him about the twinkie."
"What about the twinkie."

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Here's another idea Ghunkogoe! Why would they bomb this way in the first place?

Terror?Sheer perversity (ie-cuz we can?)
Mass destruction/ crippling an enemy
Possible invasion prep?-leads to yer local resistance getting their chance to square the field.
Or, "keep them in their place" (planetbound).
Or maybe-the enemy has a weakness-missile technology, and resorts to the cheapest weapon available(asteroids) to achieve the same results!

Good list except you forgot one:

Test run - In the B5:Crusade movie the Drakh tested a planet killer on the thief's homeworld

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by Tom Schoene:
Why would you get EMP from a rock? AIUI, nuclear detonations produce EMP as a result of gamma radiation from a nuclear blast kicking lose Compton electrons from air molecules, which in turn produce a cascade of additional electrons. A simple rock won't produce that effect, or at least not so dramatically.

I was assuming that at the energy levels here you would still get a significant release of x-rays for a compton effect discharge. But I can't find my copy of Effects of Atomic Weapons so I bow.

As far as retaliating from the surface, it takes months or years to increase tech level, and in my example the rock is released up to a light-second of planet, from almost any directions. Detecting the incoming vehicle before it releases the rock is going to require a miracle even at TL8, and targeting a return shot would be impossible.

On the downside the dumb rocks will be about as accurate as 1960s ICBMs. Better suited for a terror bombing than for military action`

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by George Boyett:

Good list except you forgot one:

Test run - In the B5:Crusade movie the Drakh tested a planet killer on the thief's homeworld

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GAB, fer me, that falls under the "sheer perversity/ because we can," reason. Just MHO, ya see...