Questions for the Ancients.

[The Oz]

Yet we know that HH universe pulser darts do come in an explosive version which does quite a bit more damage than the non-explosive version. I don't recall any description of what size a pulser dart is, does anyone else?

 

[eclipse]

Originally posted by The Oz:
Yet we know that HH universe pulser darts do come in an explosive version which does quite a bit more damage than the non-explosive version. I don't recall any description of what size a pulser dart is, does anyone else?

Small, given the magazine sizes.
My take is that the Honorverse is much higher tech level than the standard Traveller universe in grav and basic weapons tech. This would include putting a small amount of very powerful explosive in the size of Traveller 4mm gauss round.

 

[far-trader]

Hmm, maybe they are a heavier dart. I don't recall what the limit was for them in FF&S but the 4mm were on the small end of the scale. I seem to recall designing a heavier version, 6mm maybe but I'm not sure. It was years ago and the notes are possibly lost, definately hiding

 

[bryan gibson]

the misapprehesion here is applying traveller standards to the honorverse, which is decidedly different!

Comparing HH to Traveller is apples and oranges, might as well debate the nances of the drive physics and jump, no?

 

[The Oz]

Since CotI is creating a T20 version covering the HH universe, we are trying to find what we feel are the most analogous weapons in T20 to those mentioned in the HH universe.

By doing so we're locating a few rough edges between the HH universe and T20 and (hopefully) bringing them to the attention of the CotI staff so that corrections/alterations may be applied where needed.

Plus, it's fun!

 

[Savar]

in one of the short storys they described a light body armor that could stop shredder type darts.

Explosve Darts are for armored targets because the armor slows them down anuff that they will explode in the target, agenst an unarmed target they explode behind that target. - if I rememeber right about the quote from the 1st book.

and there are Plenty of planets in the Honorverse that still have "chemical burners".

you folks haven't even broght up Plasma Rifles and such yet for Heavy Weapons.

As Hunter said don't get hit is the only way to have a reliable way of servival in the Honorverse.

 

[Straybow]

Higher velocity is only useful to a point then the bullet does less damage and passes through That is correct, however at much higher velocities, you get, at least in theory, a hydrodynamic shock effect. Since a human is made up of mostly water, and cells are effectively bags of water, a hit at hyper velocity can cause a ripple similar to dropping a stone in a pond. In this case though shattering cell membranes and doing serious damage.

The lethality of Honorverse pulse projectiles are space-opera-ized.

Flesh doesn't transmit shock waves like a fluid. The effective viscosity of cell walls and internal membranes is surprisingly effective at damping shock waves. The shock effects are limited to a narrow cone, and higher velocity makes the cone narrower.

Someone once speculated that shock waves could propagate through blood vessels to rupture the heart. That doesn't work either, as the shock waves either cause a localized blowout or get damped by repeated reflections off the vessel walls.

Everything I read says they are 4mm hollow point needles. You aren't goint to pack much of a charge in that. Doing so would not add much lethality and would render your ammunition unstable in flight.

There are chemical explosives capable of achieving great power in very small quantities, but they are naturally very dangerous to handle.

For example, pure crystaline Iodine is perhaps the most explosive chemical known, equivalent to thousands of times its weight in cordite or similar compound. A crystal the size of a pinhead would be sufficient to make a lethal explosion.

The problem is that it reacts instantly with the tiniest amount of oxygen. Instantly. Tiny. Boom. You end up needing a binary component arrangement, an inertial arming mechanism, etc, and manufacturing it is going to be tricky.

A sufficiently advanced weapons industry can manage it. As a side benefit, an industrial accident becomes a tourist attraction. "I want my picture taken standing on the rim of the 1200m Astro-Arms crater. It's the biggest in the sector!"

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

here's a another complication for you.
If it's the grav drivers in the pulser that controll velocity...

who says they can't be dailed in to whatever velocity the operator feels suits the situation?

or at least have couple of different 'standard' velocities on a selector switch?