How ubiquitous would nuclear missiles be in Traveller?

[Thunderbolt]

After following a thought experiment thread on COTI concerning a 'no spinal mounts' universe, the response was that the main ship killer would be nuclear missile bays, and other threads on combat have also championed nukes.

My thought was, given all our contemporary anxieties about proliferation, byproducts and waste resulting from their production, storage and safety, ships carrying racks and racks of nukes and lobbing them around routinely seems fraught with dangers.

I imagine if they were so widely used, there would be whole department of the navy with its own ships and staff who go around keeping track of every single missile, and going into the aftermath of a conflict checking every hulk for unused devices.

And what about the missiles that just plain missed, and now drift ever so slowly around the star system where they were fired waiting for an enterprising scavenger ship to pick them up and sell them on....

 

[sabredog]

Like missiles of today I imagine the missiles would fly a given distance and if they didn't hit the target would perform a check to see if they could hit any other targets. If the missile determined that it could not, then it would self-destruct. Kind of like a modern torpedo, the missile could do a circling sweep while trying to get a lock on a hostile before blowing itself up.

Friendlies could have n IFF signal pinging away to avoid having their own side's missiles homing in on them.

And as far as how prevalent they would be in combat, remember that in space massive environmental destruction from blast and radiation isn't a worry like it would be on a planet. And since HG has rules for nuclear dampers and nuke vs. HE warheads for computing damage, nuclear missiles seem to be the norm for space combat among at least the capital ships, if not the smaller ones.

I also doubt the hulks have many unsed missiles in good shape to salvage - besides, rather than worry about salvaging the nukes it might be a better practice to just tow the ship to a place away from navigation lanes, or blow it up where it is.

There might even be failsafe devices for neutralizing the nuke warheads in the magazines that could use a high powered nuclear damper that "kills" the warheads if a switch is pulled in order to prevent their capture should the ship be under attack and losing.

 

[HG_B]

My thought was, given all our contemporary anxieties about ... byproducts and waste resulting from their production,

When you have easy space travel, that isn't a problem. Heck, it's not even a real problem now, just a political one.

 

[Thunderbolt]

Presuming that the process of creating warheads still fundamentally rests on either the enrichment of U235 or breeding of Pu239, you'd kind of hope that all this took place in space once the basic raw materials were shipped off the surface, otherwise that's a heck of a lot of nasty stuff to deal with!

I'm perhaps thinking of scenarios and consequences; right now a nuke is a special ticket item, they are carefully monitored, extraordinary procedures surround them at every turn from construction to disposal, each one an individual, logged, verified and accounted for.

If they become just a crateful of dusty shells stored on pretty well every naval ship going, from speed boat and rust bucket escort, to ship of the line dreadnought, where on earth do the safe guards go when these things have become so tediously routine - routine becomes complacency?

As far as the post battle scenario, I had in my mind the aftermath of a particularly furious engagement, where the loser must quickly consolidate and try and pick themselves up, which leaves a lot of wreckage out there - we haven't got time for that, we have a war on our hands !!

 

[Whipsnade]

Presuming that the process of creating warheads still fundamentally rests on either the enrichment of U235 or breeding of Pu239...

Thunderbolt,

And those are precisely the assumptions we'll need to toy with to prevent the 57th Century from becoming an Atomic Horror scenario. While your fears and assumptions are well founded, I think we can apply a few tweaks which will, if not eliminate them, dial them back towards something less frightening.

Tweak the First - In the 57th Century, "nuke" does not equate "fission".

Our current fusion weapons are more accurately fission-fusion and fission-fusion-fission weapons. In our current weapons fission is used to create the conditions necessary for fusion and fission requires all those nasty trans-uranic elements you mentioned above. Among the conditions fusion requires is a certain amount of compression. At our current tech level, we must use fission to create that, but what would a civilization with gravitic and other technologies require fission to trigger their fusion weapons? After all, this same civilization regularly uses fusion reactors.

Let me suggest that, once the technologies behind fusion reactors are developed, fusion weapons no longer need fission triggers. To steal a term from Larry Niven, nuclear warheads in Traveller can be assumed to be "pinch fusion" warheads...

... assumed to be unless the GM has a good reason not to assume them to be!

Tweak the Second - In the 57th Century, nuclear dampers are everywhere.

The canonical nuclear damper effects the strong nuclear force and thus can manipulate the potential for both fission and fusion. (I don't know which person or persons in GDW was responsible for the description of the nuclear damper in LBB:4 but, speaking as a nuclear engineer, that description is masterful.)

The only uses mentioned in canon for the damper are in LBB:4 where damper vehicles provide a fission/fusion free zone over a given region and LBB:5 where dampers act as a defensive battery against nuclear missile hits. In both cases, the damper isn't a perfect device and has limitations, but the description of how it operates points to numerous civilian uses.

A damper should be able to prevent the decay of the elements you mentioned. More importantly, a damper should be able to accelerate the decay of the same thus rendering them safer faster. Because a damper can work over a wide area, a damper could 'clean up" radioactive contamination by accelerating the decay of that contamination. Of course, this acceleration of decay comes with a price, primarily thermal effects, but the clean up can occur.

So, with our two tweaks, both based on suggestions within the game's technology, we've dialed back the potential for widespread nuclear contamination by A) limiting the amount of trans-uranics in weapons and 2) providing a mechanism for cleaning up said trans-uranics when they are employed.

It's not perfect, it won't prevent every accident, but it will make the 57th Century a lot less like Fallout then we originally feared.

I'm perhaps thinking of scenarios and consequences; right now a nuke is a special ticket item, they are carefully monitored, extraordinary procedures surround them at every turn from construction to disposal, each one an individual, logged, verified and accounted for.

And sometimes those procedures will either be non-existent, post-Soviet Russia, or ignored, check out the design notes for my adventure Broken Arrows at Freelance Traveller. Of course, when or if this happens is up to the GM. The incidents will not be daily events.

... routine becomes complacency?

I'll point you to Broken Arrows again.

As far as the post battle scenario, I had in my mind the aftermath of a particularly furious engagement, where the loser must quickly consolidate and try and pick themselves up, which leaves a lot of wreckage out there - we haven't got time for that, we have a war on our hands !!

Current nuclear weapons, which are almost solely fission-fusion/fission-fusion-fission types require a certain substance to operate. That substance, which I won't name, has an operational half-life, which I won't state. Suffice it to say that current weapons must be regularly maintained not only for the electronics involved but also to replace the substance I've mentioned. Once that substance passes it's operational half-life, the weapon in question is essentially inert. It could be disassembled for the materials it contains and the conventional explosives can be detonated, but the device cannot be detonated in a nuclear sense.

We can use this real world fact to suggest that the warheads of the 57th Century, apart from the fail safes and IFF signals Sabredog proposed, also have an operational shelf life. They too require a replacement of "fresh" materials for "old". This means the chances that the salvage of wrecks, or even launched missiles which missed their targets, will produce working warheads is slim. Again, the chance is back in the hands of the GM as this is nothing which should happen routinely.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Thunderbolt]

Thanks for such an informed and informative reply, definitely less frightening.

This mystery substance sounds like an excellent clue in a scenario, an anonymous entry on an import manifest, which quickly spirals into a planetary emergency - Jack Bauer, eat your heart out!

 

[sabredog]

Tweak the Second - In the 57th Century, nuclear dampers are everywhere.

The only uses mentioned in canon for the damper are in LBB:4 where damper vehicles provide a fission/fusion free zone over a given region and LBB:5 where dampers act as a defensive battery against nuclear missile hits. In both cases, the damper isn't a perfect device and has limitations, but the description of how it operates points to numerous civilian uses.

A damper sold be able to prevent the decay of the elements you mentioned. More importantly, a damper should be able to accelerate the decay of the same thus rendering them safer faster. Because a damper can work over a wide area, a damper could 'clean up" radioactive contamination by accelerating the decay of that contamination. Of course, this acceleration of decay comes with a price, primarily thermal effects, but the clean up can occur.

Striker gives more information on the uses of dampers on the battlefield. They are used for 3 things: intercepting and reducing the yield of incoming nuclear warheads (which is the same as in HG), cleaning up battlefield fallout, and in damper boxes to increase the shelf life of californium collapsing rounds.

So canon does allow for both the cleaning up effect and storage. The damper boxes in Striker are ridiculously inefficient, but they are designed for vehicles to use for small loads of rounds. If one assumes that larger, more powerful "boxes" are available at weapon depots, then the smaller ones make more sense: the small ones are just for temporary storage of the nuclear rounds and they are not usually kept loaded on the vehicles until they go to the battlefield.

This is still pretty awkward in my opinion, but collapsing rounds are the only things they list that use the boxes, too. However, there is no reason why they cannot be used in ship magazines. IMTU ship magazines will have a nuclear damper failsafe system to "kill" the warheads if the ship is in danger of capture, as well as keep the warheads "fresh" for use.

BTW: at TL-16+ LBB4 mentions that dampers can be used as a disintegration weapon...hmmm. Something to leave around for a group of players to discover somewhere?

 

[Whipsnade]

Thanks for such an informed and informative reply, definitely less frightening.

Thunderbolt,

I'm glad I could help. No one wants an Atomic Horror or Fallout version of Traveller. More accurately, no one wants a galaxy-wide Atomic Horror/Fallout version of Traveller. Those motifs are perfectly alright on individual worlds, as illustrated by Asmodeus in the Marches.

This mystery substance sounds like an excellent clue in a scenario...

Very much so. Other than for warheads, there's no other use for it, that I'm aware of, in the specific quantities, purities, and other processed attributes. When you come across it looking like X, Y, and Z, it can only be there for one use. Even it's "precursor materials" are rarely used for anything else, leading you again to a pretty certain "One Use Only assumption.

Make up some frightfully technical name, give the information secretly to a thoughtful player as a plausible part of their character's background, have the party "stumble" over the material in question, and watch your players write the adventure for you.


Regards,
Bill

 

[HG_B]

This mystery substance sounds like an excellent clue in a scenario, an anonymous entry on an import manifest, which quickly spirals into a planetary emergency - Jack Bauer, eat your heart out!

Remember though, it's not like the info isn't available for those for look for it... I'd be more concerned if someone started ordering something like 198 Au.

 

[Whipsnade]

Striker gives more information on the uses of dampers on the battlefield. They are used for 3 things: intercepting and reducing the yield of incoming nuclear warheads (which is the same as in HG), cleaning up battlefield fallout, and in damper boxes to increase the shelf life of californium collapsing rounds.

Sabredog,

Thank you. I'd forgotten about Striker and it's californium collapsing rounds.

It's funny, but to an old grognard like me, those californium rounds date Striker as accurately as any publishing imprint. It's a bit like radiocarbon testing really.

When the Cold War began heating back up in the late 70s/early 80s, there were all sorts of fears about the Soviet/Pact tank hordes waiting to pout through the Fulda Gap and those fears brought about all sorts of proposals ranging from the insightful and incisive to the wacky and insane.

I'm sure some of us remember the "neutron bomb"? A tactical nuclear warhead enhanced to create more, shorter lived radiation? The idea was to kill Soviet tankers via rad doses while, supposedly, not mussing up the West German countryside too much.

Along with the neutron bomb, there were also proposals for "sub-critical" tactical warheads which would attain a super-critical state thanks to the incredible compression which would occur during the fractions of a second the round impacted a target's armor.

This idea is just the sort of chrome game designers love and you see "collapsing" or "mini" nuke rounds sometimes down to pistol calibers in games ranging from Striker to Metagaming's Helltanks and Ogre.

IMTU ship magazines will have a nuclear damper failsafe system to "kill" the warheads if the ship is in danger of capture, as well as keep the warheads "fresh" for use.

That's a nifty idea! I like the fact that the magazine dampers work in two different ways, first, keeping the warheads "fresh" and second, hopefully "spiking" the warheads if the ship is in danger of capture.

Consider that idea stolen. In fact, consider it stolen for a little project I've been mulling over...


Regards,
Bill

 

[BlackBat242]

Current nuclear weapons, which are almost solely fission-fusion/fission-fusion-fission types require a certain substance to operate. That substance, which I won't name, has an operational half-life, which I won't state. Suffice it to say that current weapons must be regularly maintained not only for the electronics involved but also to replace the substance I've mentioned. Once that substance passes it's operational half-life, the weapon in question is essentially inert. It could be disassembled for the materials it contains and the conventional explosives can be detonated, but the device cannot be detonated in a nuclear sense.

Regards,
Bill

Sorry if I offend you, but some of that info is widely available in the public domain... evidence this article on Wiki-waki (Wikipedia):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Nuclear_weapons

 

[Whipsnade]

Sorry if I offend you, but some of that info is widely available in the public domain...

BB,

No offense taken.

Some of what I stepped around may in the public domain, but I wasn't going to write about the smallest jot or tittle.


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

Sorry if I offend you, but some of that info is widely available in the public domain... evidence this article on Wiki-waki (Wikipedia):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Nuclear_weapons

A great many things are well known, but if a current or insufficiently-long-out US serviceman writes them, he/she can be prosecuted, even tho' public sources provide the same info.

Many servicemen thus develop "good habits of self-redaction"... which may seem odd, but it's a form of self protection, and it often outlasts its need.

 

[Icosahedron]

Well, Bill has covered the two main points I was going to make - about non-fission nukes and the use of dampers to destroy unwanted nukes and clean up after a battle, but I'll comment on his secret initiator:

This looks to be a simple trigger device. I'm not a nuke expert, but I imagine the shelf-life of the trigger wouldn't render a fission warhead unuseable, the salvager would simply replace the trigger, or harvest the fissile materials and go primitive without the fancy trigger, and he's ready to sell/use. The fissile materials themselves have a very long shelf life as we all know to our cost.

I'm also not so sure that a device like this would be needed in a non-fission device, and in any case, whatever triggers the reaction in your domestic fusion power plant, could equally trigger a nuclear weapon.

As another thought, fission power plants cannot detonate to create a weapon, but is the same true of Traveller fusion power plants? Does every ship have a potential bomb aboard for the wiley salvage merchant to abuse?

EDIT: Interesting, Aramis. Without wishing to get political, it's amazingly easy to demonstrate that the law is an ass, isn't it?

 

[Whipsnade]

This looks to be a simple trigger device. I'm not a nuke expert, but I imagine the shelf-life of the trigger wouldn't render a fission warhead unuseable...

Icosahedron,

The shelf life of a fission warhead would be effected by other things and much less effected by those other things too. That's why I suggested that nearly all nukes in the 57th Century are fusion warheads and, more importantly, fusion warheads that don't require the fission "jump start" we currently use; i.e. "pinch" fusion warheads.

The self-redacted thingamajiggy pertains solely to the fusion portion of the fission-to-fusion and fission-to-fusion-to-fission devices currently in use. For the purposes of dialing back the Atomic Horror/Fallout potential, I assumed the self-redacted thingamajiggy or something similar to it is still used in "pinch fusion" warheads.

... the salvager would simply replace the trigger...

Perhaps, if they know a great deal about the many extremely critical details concerning that "trigger". While the self-redacted thingamajiggy is similar between different warhead designs, it is not the exactly same between different warhead designs, and it must be perfect or the warhead doesn't work as designed.

... or harvest the fissile materials...

I'm suggesting "pinch" fusion so there are no fissile materials of the kind you're talking about in 57th Century nukes. They're straight-to-fusion designs and not the fission-to-fusion types we have today.

I'm also not so sure that a device like this would be needed in a non-fission device...

The self-redacted thingamajiggy is required for fusion weapons.

... and in any case, whatever triggers the reaction in your domestic fusion power plant, could equally trigger a nuclear weapon.

I wouldn't assume that, because...

.... fission power plants cannot detonate to create a weapon...

So why not assume the same holds true for fusion plants and fusion weapons? Believe me, there's a lot of factors which make that a very plausible assumption.

One note about self-redaction if I may. Loose lips bomb ships in port refueling, reveal that stealth aircraft can be tracked by cell phone tower interference, and help the Afghan Taliban kidnap US soldiers but I agree that operational security may seem like a joke sometimes.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Thunderbolt]

Picking up the theme of self-censorship, the wide availability of these things in the fictional naval inventory means a much larger body of people used to working with them, so the chance that one bad apple is willing to trade their skills rises..

On another note, I did wonder if in fact nukes would be necessary at all. The destructive power of an anti-shipping missile (as witnessed when we went to war with Argentina for the Falklands) seems more than adequate to render a vessel out of action, while a warhead acting like a bunker buster that slams into the ship and detonates inside ought to wreak havoc.

 

[Whipsnade]

On another note, I did wonder if in fact nukes would be necessary at all.

Thunderbolt,

The game has had both conventional and nuclear missiles from nearly the first, so all missiles needn't have nuclear warheads.

However, given the fact that Traveller's lasers have ranges measured in light-seconds and that even merchant craft can carry them, the idea that conventional missiles can routinely explode close enough to vessels to damage them and can even impact vessels is rather hard to sell. TNE finally "admitted" the "need" for missiles to be carrying nuke-powered "det-laser" warheads as a logical consequence of the canonical abilities of lasers.

It was a "Pick Your Poison" type moment, either lasers or missiles had to change fundamentally. While there was a great deal of logic behind both the problem and it's solution, we needn't always be logical!

IMTU any polity worthy of it's claims to govern keeps a flinty eye firmly on the issue of WMDs, not that they use the term WMDs. While some polities ban outright their manufacture, possession, and use by anyone, even themselves, some polities have a more nuanced approach. The Third Imperium, as with so much else it does, falls into the nuanced category.

IMTU, the famous Imperial Rules of War, which are neither imperial or rules, don't exactly prohibit the use of nukes. Instead, the Imperium applies a certain "situational latitude" in which the use nuclear weapons must be justified to the Imperium's satisfaction. A mercenary warship using a nuke to destroy an "outworlds" corsair in battle will barely rate a sentence in some baron's personal diary, while the participants in a corporate trade war who use a nuke to destroy an opponent's warehouse on a planet in a biosphere inside a city will need political cover right up to Strephon himself to avoid being "sanctioned" in a rather vigorous manner.

In the end, IMTU as in real life, it's a matter of who, what, when, and where when the question of nuclear weapons arises. You're not going to simply buy one at the corner drug store, no matter what the law level may be, but it isn't unheard of for nukes to be in what can be called "civilian" hands either.

No binary thinking here. No up/down, left/right, yes/no, one/zero, either/or options. Instead, IMTU, it's a kaleidoscope of gray...


Regards,
Bill

 

[Thunderbolt]

the idea that conventional missiles can routinely explode close enough to vessels to damage them and can even impact vessels is rather hard to sell...

I took my cue from the presence of a 'Surface Explosion' damage table, which allows for Interior Explosions to imply the concept of a 'hittile'. In one Traveller scenario I ran, I called them Kinetic Kill Vehicles after the 'brilliant pebbles' being developed for SDI.

So is actually hitting something with a guided missile (autonomous of course) that hard? I see these extraordinary videos of the Excalibur shell in action and read about these missile interceptor tests conducted recently by the US, a starship with its powerplant and engines ablaze seems like an easy target.

 

[aramis]

I took my cue from the presence of a 'Surface Explosion' damage table, which allows for Interior Explosions to imply the concept of a 'hittile'. In one Traveller scenario I ran, I called them Kinetic Kill Vehicles after the 'brilliant pebbles' being developed for SDI.

So is actually hitting something with a guided missile (autonomous of course) that hard? I see these extraordinary videos of the Excalibur shell in action and read about these missile interceptor tests conducted recently by the US, a starship with its powerplant and engines ablaze seems like an easy target.

It all depends. Given the relative velocities involved, and the limited ∆V, it can be considerably harder than it at first seems. Especially since the Excalibur makes use of aerodynamics; a space-intercept can't.

a lot of the difficulty also comes from what part of the range of the missile it will need to intercept at. A missile has an easier time for each of the following: Shorter ranges, lower initial relative speeds, higher pro-missile difference in thrust.

The CT missile is pretty wimpy; 6G's, 6G-hours ∆V...

 

[Whipsnade]

Thunderbolt,

Wil neatly explained the problem with missiles physically intercepting their targets, so I'll limit myself to the laser side of the equation.

Traveller's laser ranges are huge and Traveller's lasers are accurate over that huge range. In CT, a ship can sit beyond Earth's 100D limit and hit targets in Earth orbit with it's lasers. Such accuracy at such a range does not bode well for intercepting missiles.

Yes. lasers can be fooled or swamped and, yes, the missiles do get through, however, as a missile gets closer and closer to a ship firing at it, the targeting solution gets easier and easier.

If Traveller missiles were 'swarms" of smaller objects the issue would be easier to deal with, but we know Traveller missiles aren't "swarms". Each launcher launches one and even volleys from missile bays don't number above a dozen or so.

Giving missiles some sort of stand-off capability, like the nuke-pumped detonation laser warhead in TNE, partially solved the problem but the truth is that Traveller's lasers are too long ranged and too accurate for missiles to get through as often as the combat rules say they do.


Regards,
Bill