Vehicle and Ship Armour and Damage

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Anthony:
Well, large radiation doses causes damage to crystal patterns in structural materials, making them weaker (and, at the likely energy levels of PA weapons, also making them radioactive). However, the doses required for a significant effect will kill everything else on board a hundred times over -- it's mostly a problem which comes up in designing the structure of nuclear reactors.

Yes radiation can damage crystal patterns, especially in extremely large doses. No argument there, usually resulting in metal fatigue type failure sooner than expected. But not Structural damage in a Traveller Combat Round sense. (Which is what I was originally getting at when I questioned the Rad damage causing Structural Damage interpretation.)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Piper:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
But the time frame is substantially different. (From nearly instantaneous to effect over time.)

The time frame is purely dependant on the dose rate. The effect on electronics is measured in Rads in silicon per hour. The total dose needed to cause damage can occur in a *very* short span of time.

And the slow death of some electronic device is not going to cause secondary explosions or structural damage.

Structural damage? No, but the secondary effects depend on what systems fail. And the damage from total dose is not of necessity, slow.</font>[/QUOTE]Absolutely. Again no argument. But it isn't causing Structural Integrity damage. And if it isn't an instanteneous effect it is less likely to cause wide spread secondry damage. Aircraft have multiple redundant systems, so will starships.

The Radiation Damage rules kill non-fiberoptic computers (unhardened), weapon mounts, and people. Which is what one would expect from radiation damage. Again I have no problem with that. Where the problem is, and it isn't specified within the rules, is also doing Structural Damage. Unless it is a Catostrophic Critical hit (An example is the control system for the Fusion Reactor is destroyed causing the reactor to go critical), (And that is also possible) then Radiation damage isn't structural.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Further most starships have skin thick enough to shrug off micrometeorites, and internal compartmentalization that would do the same. Since Metals and Alloys are good insulators against radiation, some will get through but generally very low doses and that will substantially decrease over time (even a short period of time)

Good, but far from perfect. Enhanced radiation weapons (neutron bombs) were theorized as a way to knock out massed Soviet armour. A close proximity burst releases a lot of rads. Extremely thick bulkheads of lead would work to a degree, but material of lesser density won't.

so how does this effect against electronic devices cause Structural damage?

It doesn't, certainly not over the short term. But my comment was specific to the EMP issue. </font>[/QUOTE]In the case of stopping structural damage, good but not perfect is likely, in the short term, to be good enough. I am not saying it won't kill people, or other systems in the general vicinity of the hit. But the bulkheads should be sufficient, most of the time, to stop short term widespread destruction of electronics in the ship.