Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Don John of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto would also concur.
Nukes and the small ship universe
- Thread starter Carlobrand
- Start date
Don John of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto would also concur.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Depends on how many guns you can pragmatically come to bear.
Though classic tactics are to try and outflank and overlap the opposing line, reserves would be there to plug any unexpected breakthroughs.
Though classic tactics are to try and outflank and overlap the opposing line, reserves would be there to plug any unexpected breakthroughs.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I disagree. All three, and many others writing on naval strategy recognized that navies don't hold ground (ocean) like an army would on land. Instead, they advocate that naval power be concentrated and a large fleet sent against the enemy in which that entire fleet participates in battle.
Interesting... Are there any online links to references you can post so I can have a look?
Switching to metric, that rule of thumb works out to a bit over 2kt/kg. Surfing around the web it looks like 6kt/kg is the yield limit on larger weapons or about 20Mt/dton to translate to CT terms (based very roughly on the B-41).
But that is with today's public technology. Can anyone estimate the theoretical yield per kg and per volume of a warhead? I'm going to try, but I doubt my ability to get it right.
EDIT: gonna show the work for the translation to volume because I keep making mistakes
B-41
dimensions: 52" radius, 148" long (model as a cylinder)
weight: 4,839 kg
cu. in to dton: 854,331 (I use 14m^3 per dton)
6kg/kt*4839kg= ~29MT yield at today's "practical" limit
pi*52^2*148/854331 = ~1.5 dton size of a B-41
29MT/1.5dton = 20MT (rounded up since this is all really rough)
Last edited:
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
On line? Not really. I have at least a dozen plus good books on the subject. I guess it's time to write an article on the principles of naval warfare...
Carlobrand said:
I like the screen/line/reserve. Screens are... congruent with Traveller. I don't know if a "reserve" is "effective" in "space warfare", but if Enoki is correct then it seems that we'd have to decide if we want space combat to be like naval warfare (and what era) or Napoleonic land warfare. Or something else of course.
One might say that "reserve" could include non-combatant elements -- for example, the classic High Guard situation where several ships are refueling in a gas giant, and the screen and line are protecting them from aggressors. But you could just as easily say that non-combatants are part of NO battle formation at all -- in effect, they are the prize.
And also we have the ridiculous edge case where a single fighter is the "line", thereby protecting ALL ships behind it, perhaps partly because HG doesn't have flanking rules (easily remedied I suppose).
As Dilbert's post implies, it would require weakening meson guns. Which doesn't seem to be a problem to me -- I think they're awfully strong. It WOULD however play differently than High Guard.
On the nuke question, we can work backwards from either the missile supplement or Striker nukes (which give values that can be directly applied to the armor conversion).
The same Striker conversion value can give one helluva sphere of destruction from a meson gun detonation.
A bigger problem from my perspective is the non-linear n on-proportionate damage in maneuver drives on the surface table, and continues to be a real sticky point in using the HG tables for my HG:Mayday version.
To wit, a Maneuver-1 hit can be knocking out 5 tons of ACS M-drive, or 5000 tons of Big Ship M-drive.
Worse, it can be a low rating weapon doing such a variable of damage.
Really, it breaks the game and makes the big ships an exercise in preening status symbol moreso then the meson gun.
The same Striker conversion value can give one helluva sphere of destruction from a meson gun detonation.
A bigger problem from my perspective is the non-linear n on-proportionate damage in maneuver drives on the surface table, and continues to be a real sticky point in using the HG tables for my HG:Mayday version.
To wit, a Maneuver-1 hit can be knocking out 5 tons of ACS M-drive, or 5000 tons of Big Ship M-drive.
Worse, it can be a low rating weapon doing such a variable of damage.
Really, it breaks the game and makes the big ships an exercise in preening status symbol moreso then the meson gun.
Your ridiculously unarmored riders would need a screen, no? Else, the opposing screen would nuke them into expanding gas. The idea itself does not alter the dominance of mesons; it simply makes the capital ships vulnerable to something besides meson fire and, in the course of that, gives a real job to the smaller ships, who will now have to defend the big boys from the far future equivalent of missile boats.
Still not sure if the big boys are worth the effort, though. Ton for ton, a force of only small ships will beat an equal tonnage mixed force. The big boys amount to putting useful missile launchers in the rear where they're not doing anything useful.
Putting aside the debate about the usefulness of reserves - and, in fairness to Enoki, the game does not emulate circumstances that would favor a fighting reserve well - the reserve rule allows one to create scenarios like escorting merchants.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
All I can say is that the 6 kiloton per kilogram is far too high.
The B41 Nuclear Bomb achieved a 5.2 kT per kg efficiency and the Taylor limit of theoretical yield is 6 kT per kg.
Nowadays, the upper limit is more a function of the maximum speed and brisance of the conventional explosives used to assemble the critical mass than it is of the size or shape of the critical mass. In this way, ther Taylor Limit is more descriptive than prescriptive. I have read of proposed designs approaching 10kt/kg. The relevant Wikipedia article, while incomplete, is not bad.
Fissile material is rather resource-intensive to produce, so the engineers are always looking to make yields as efficient as possible.
The main limiting factor is the blowback that occurs as the critical mass (which for plutonium, by the way, is around a mere 11kg at the bottom end IIRC) comes together and the nuclear explosion overpowers the assembly implosion, blasting the whole thing apart before only a tiny fraction of the critical mass has been converted to energy.
Current maximum yields of around 20mt reliably for thermonuclear (fission-trigger fusion devices), and theoretically up to around 200mt if you are both determined and willing to be wasteful, are a function of the practical limitations of the geometry of the devices and their critical mass sub-assemblies (including the tritium placed at the physical center of the whole setup), the force which can be brought to bear behind the triggering implosion, and the clever use of neutron-reflective materials to quickly increase neutron density during the assembly. Modern programmable-yield tactical-use warheads use precision control of the conventional detonation sequence to adjust the implosion speed and therefore the size of the resulting (thermo)nuclear blowback.
Historically, a multipart critical mass can be designed incorporating significant extra material in each part (but being mindful to keep each part itself under critical mass), the very best high explosives and detonation controls can be employed, and lots of exotic neutron reflecting/tamping materials can be wrapped around everything to push the yield as high as possible. The 50Mt "Tsar Bomba" thermonuclear device was believed to use all these tricks, and had the program continued (a shortage of U-238 tamping materials prevented it), could have reached the neighborhood of 100-200Mt. And that's for a full-on thermonuclear device, rather than a simpler atomic one.
In Trav terms, there are other tricks that can come into play at higher TLs (especially if you are concerned about problems with "Near-C Rocks" such as steering them) to conceivably push yields well beyond current limits and make strategic nuclear devices massively more efficient. Using a railgun to assemble the critical mass at a relativistic velocity comes readily to mind, as does using a nuclear damper to completely suppress the atomic reaction until the critical mass is fully assembled. The former could increase ordinary-size critical mass yields by a few orders of magnitude, the latter by many -- I am thinking in the neighborhood of petatons at least.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
The 11 kilograms is for U-235 and is high, for P-239 you are looking at more like 5 kilograms. For plutonium, the yield is also going to be dependent on how much Plutonium-240 is in your material. A lot depends on what type of a reflector you are using, and more than that I cannot say.
Yeah, the level of purity you can achieve plays a big part in it, for sure.
And gravitics could probably play a role in the refinement process, too.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Wonder what nuclear damper tech will do to nuclear warhead yields...
or gravitic compression in the same strength gravity field that is used to focus lasers...
or gravitic compression in the same strength gravity field that is used to focus lasers...
Wasn't gravitic compression the justification for effective laser ranges in TNE FF&S?
*looks up the book*
FF&S v.2 p125.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Grav focussing is a nice handwave - but doesn't stand up to physics.
The problem with laser beam divergence/diffration occurs once it has left the emitter.
So for 'grav focussing' to make a difference your intense artificial gravity point has to be between the firing ship and the target.
So why not just use the grav beam to rip apart the target with tidal forces?
Remove the grav focusing factor in FF&S and limit lasers to x-ray wavelength until TL16+ and you reduce their range. Space combat can then be reduced in timescale and range.
Renegade Legion goes with 75km hexes and plays just fine
I have long been of the thought that space combat will have to be consensual or forced at choke points such as planets, (L)stations and moons which means orbital velocities or risk mutual destruction.
The problem with laser beam divergence/diffration occurs once it has left the emitter.
So for 'grav focussing' to make a difference your intense artificial gravity point has to be between the firing ship and the target.
So why not just use the grav beam to rip apart the target with tidal forces?
Remove the grav focusing factor in FF&S and limit lasers to x-ray wavelength until TL16+ and you reduce their range. Space combat can then be reduced in timescale and range.
Renegade Legion goes with 75km hexes and plays just fine
I have long been of the thought that space combat will have to be consensual or forced at choke points such as planets, (L)stations and moons which means orbital velocities or risk mutual destruction.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
They say they can now set the yield on a given nuclear warhead, just prior to launch.
To prevent overkill.
To prevent overkill.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
They have had that since the mid-1980s, but it only applies to certain weapons. Dialing down means a waste of expensive fissionable material. Neither bomb-grade U-235 and very pure Pu-239 is cheap. Reactor-grade plutonium is widely available but has highly variable yields along with pre-initiation problems, as in melting down.
I thought that was already what was happening. The edge of the jump shadow seems like a logical meeting point, since either or both sides might want to preserve the ability to escape by jump. The game hints pretty strongly at them forming lines or clusters to exchange fire with minimal maneuver unless someone's trying to escape under thrust.
