1924 PD - Rebuilding the Solarian League Navy

cthia wrote:The physics are not supposed to allow it in reality, I agree. But it seems to be allowed in the HV. Or how could Sonja counter the triple ripple? It seems like it would be a lot easier for the much larger but also much slower LAC to make the turns Sonja asked of missiles in order for them to evade the triple ripple.

You've got missiles traveling at a very high percent of C. And they're expected to quickly "dive" to avoid enemy missiles???; Where enemy missiles and friendly missiles are both traveling at a large percent of C? It should require significantly more effort to accomplish that with missiles than with a much slower LAC.

At speeds approaching C, everything approaches infinity.

Missiles somehow have the ability to weave in and out of formations???

Where can I find the "shorts" in my wires?

Actually it's easier for missiles to avoid the triple ripple. They've got nearly 60x the acceleration; which means 60x the lateral displacement capability. Sure the percentage deflection from course is likely lower because they'd sliding forward more quickly - but the absolute lateral displacement is higher. In 10 seconds of acceleration an MDM can displace 22,540 km; while a LAC can only displace about 385 km. And you dodge in absolute displacement, not relative displacement.

All a missile really needs to do to avoid the ripple is tip up far enough to put their wedge between them and the explosions, and displace laterally far enough to avoid scooping up the rapidly dissipating plasma from the blasts down their throats. Interposing the wedge keeps their sensors from being blinded - though running into the plasma would likely blind, cripple, or kill the missile. But dodge both and you can turn back and reacquire the enemy.

(And one of the ways wedges cheat physics, as we know it, is that their acceleration doesn't slow as you approach the speed of light. A missile that accelerates for 9 minutes at 46,000 g ends up at 65,726,640 km and 0.81 c. Yet if relativity fully applied 9 minutes on the missile's 'clock' should take 10.02 min to outside observers; cover 69,418,341 km yet only have reached 0.67c -- but in the books none of that happens. RFC probably ignores that part of relativity just to keep the math somewhat sane -- but it means missiles have no trouble maneuvering)

Nuclear explosions in deep space don't produce fireballs. That's the x-rays of the weapon being strongly absorbed by the air. There is no air in space. Instead of the x-rays being absorbed by the air and radiating light and heat as the air cools the x-rays are just emitted. The weapon is just a really bright flashbulb visually in deep space.

kzt wrote:Nuclear explosions in deep space don't produce fireballs. That's the x-rays of the weapon being strongly absorbed by the air. There is no air in space. Instead of the x-rays being absorbed by the air and radiating light and heat as the air cools the x-rays are just emitted. The weapon is just a really bright flashbulb visually in deep space.

But you still have a couple tons of missile body getting vaporized by the explosion and, even in the vacuum of space, that doesn't dissipate instantly. Running headlong into that at a frac-c speeds moments after the explosion is likely to be a significant emotional event.

Jonathan_S wrote:But you still have a couple tons of missile body getting vaporized by the explosion and,

Why would said body vaporize? Even if there was direct contact? Have you bothered to look at nuclear test explosion sites here on earth? The stand is still standing in DIRECT contact. The dirt with water vapor to explosively expand gets blown away though... Missiles do not have water to explosively expand. No reason they would not have hard radiation shield on front where their sensors rotate at some frequency from behind said shield. It would be beyond stupid to NOT have this as basic hardware.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:The physics are not supposed to allow it in reality, I agree. But it seems to be allowed in the HV. Or how could Sonja counter the triple ripple? It seems like it would be a lot easier for the much larger but also much slower LAC to make the turns Sonja asked of missiles in order for them to evade the triple ripple.

You've got missiles traveling at a very high percent of C. And they're expected to quickly "dive" to avoid enemy missiles???; Where enemy missiles and friendly missiles are both traveling at a large percent of C? It should require significantly more effort to accomplish that with missiles than with a much slower LAC.

At speeds approaching C, everything approaches infinity.

Missiles somehow have the ability to weave in and out of formations???

Where can I find the "shorts" in my wires?

Actually it's easier for missiles to avoid the triple ripple. They've got nearly 60x the acceleration; which means 60x the lateral displacement capability. Sure the percentage deflection from course is likely lower because they'd sliding forward more quickly - but the absolute lateral displacement is higher. In 10 seconds of acceleration an MDM can displace 22,540 km; while a LAC can only displace about 385 km. And you dodge in absolute displacement, not relative displacement.

All a missile really needs to do to avoid the ripple is tip up far enough to put their wedge between them and the explosions, and displace laterally far enough to avoid scooping up the rapidly dissipating plasma from the blasts down their throats. Interposing the wedge keeps their sensors from being blinded - though running into the plasma would likely blind, cripple, or kill the missile. But dodge both and you can turn back and reacquire the enemy.

(And one of the ways wedges cheat physics, as we know it, is that their acceleration doesn't slow as you approach the speed of light. A missile that accelerates for 9 minutes at 46,000 g ends up at 65,726,640 km and 0.81 c. Yet if relativity fully applied 9 minutes on the missile's 'clock' should take 10.02 min to outside observers; cover 69,418,341 km yet only have reached 0.67c -- but in the books none of that happens. RFC probably ignores that part of relativity just to keep the math somewhat sane -- but it means missiles have no trouble maneuvering)

Agreed. But another way the wedge cheats physics is its claim of being an infinite power source. As an object approaches C its mass approaches infinity, and propulsion systems can only do so much. But essentially that is why missiles perform the impossible and do not slow as C is approached.

At any rate, I am hard pressed to believe missiles can accomplish their feats of "superhuman strength" at .8C. Even if they had the time.

.

Relax wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But you still have a couple tons of missile body getting vaporized by the explosion and,

Why would said body vaporize? Even if there was direct contact? Have you bothered to look at nuclear test explosion sites here on earth? The stand is still standing in DIRECT contact. The dirt with water vapor to explosively expand gets blown away though... Missiles do not have water to explosively expand. No reason they would not have hard radiation shield on front where their sensors rotate at some frequency from behind said shield. It would be beyond stupid to NOT have this as basic hardware.

So your claim is that the same Honorverse nuclear warheads which ablate away significant amounts of meters thick starship armor will do nothing to their own missiles' bodies; which are even closer to the blast?

Also, even the relatively small (by later standards) 21kt Fat Man Trinity test "vaporized" the 15,000 ton, 100 foot, tower it was detonated atop of. Only the concrete footings were left. (Though today there's a replica tower, built by The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, in its place)
So I'm not sure which stands you saw that survived direct contact with a significant nuclear explosion (Though some of the nuclear tests were very small, measured in just dozens of tons).


And sure, while they last, the missile's grav projectors will try to funnel most of the warhead's force forwards, toward the enemy. But I still don't think the missile is going to be happy with its giant warhead going off right next to it. And frankly there's no reason to specifically try to preserve the body of a missile after it's warhead has gone off -- it's just a frac-c bit of space debris at that point.

Remember even in the 1650s "Missile warhead yields of hundreds of megatons became commonplace in this time period and heavy weapons in the gigaton range were not unheard of." [IFF], and from the perspective of the Honorverse that was 270 years ago! In contrast, the largest nuke historically tested on Earth was the Tsar Bomba at 50 mtons (because they left off the outer U-238 fusion taper; to reduce fallout -- with that on it was expected to have over 100 mtons) so a fraction of the power of the Honorverse warheads!

Jonathan_S wrote:
Remember even in the 1650s "Missile warhead yields of hundreds of megatons became commonplace in this time period and heavy weapons in the gigaton range were not unheard of." [IFF], and from the perspective of the Honorverse that was 270 years ago! In contrast, the largest nuke historically tested on Earth was the Tsar Bomba at 50 mtons (because they left off the outer U-238 fusion taper; to reduce fallout -- with that on it was expected to have over 100 mtons) so a fraction of the power of the Honorverse warheads!

An air burst nuke of 100MT has a fireball radius of 2.7km. This has an air volume of 82,447,957,600 M^3 Assume STP of 1.2kg/m^3. So the air weights a mere 98,937,549 tons. What percentage of that does your missile weight? Like 1/1,000,000, right?

What size fireball would only have an air mass of 1000 tons? 62 meters in radius. Which is roughly the size of an 8 KILOton airburst.

So no, not very scary.

Missiles, closing rates, distances, effective blast effect radius of warhead, distance missile impeller wedges extend outward from said missiles and where your targets are going to be when you should get too the. This isn't going to come out cleanly.

You have missiles moving at significant speeds and accelerating . IF they can be told/instructed to "tip up" and change the vector (Lets just use UP) early enough they could be able to avoid interpenetrations of their and the opponents missile's wedges, let alone warhead blasts being used as "flac" and -suitably correcting straight or even "down" again after surviving the passing of the enemy's missile, they still have to end up close enough to engage proper ranges with the bomb pumped lasers. They are (and are still accelerating) going "fast". They will also need to adjust for their various vector changes of up and then probably down plus they are usually being fired at something that is also accelerating and capable of changing vectors---but the missiles don't have to worry about compensator turning humans to bulkhead paste.
Still, your adding distance plus less than a "relatively" direct if curing trajectory at your targets.

If you discover your facing something like Trippel Ripple, can you have your missiles CURVE enough "away" to avoid interpenetration situations and still make interception. That's the rub.

This is one of the things that makes LACs so usefull at anti-missile defence in fleet engagements. You can, more or less effectively, maneuver to just outside the firing solutions of the enemy fleet and do pass shooting with both CM and energy weapons against targets which are "mostly" going singlemindedly after the much larger warship targets they have been assigned. LAC's really shouldn't catch a capital ship missiles attention -except when they do it's all over.

I suppose as far as having your attack missiles avoid something like TR or Barricade, it comes down to how much spread can you afford to open to have many of your birds go " over" or "under" what is coming at them in order to survive to engage their targets?

Jonathan_S wrote:But you still have a couple tons of missile body getting vaporized by the explosion and,

Jonathan_S wrote:

Relax wrote:Why would said body vaporize? Even if there was direct contact? Have you bothered to look at nuclear test explosion sites here on earth? The stand is still standing in DIRECT contact. The dirt with

So your claim is that the same Honorverse nuclear warheads which ablate away significant amounts of meters thick starship armor will do nothing to their own missiles' bodies; which are even closer to the blast?

? Yea, I was a bit hyperbolic, but the point stands.

As for your ablation... Said ablation happened when a giant WARSHIP with 3 fusion reactors and all the fusion piping full of plasma running a warship blew up very close by and it had no sidewall/radiation shielding online. Missiles are not that close, there is a reason they use wedges and not nuclear bombs... If nuclear bombs worked, a single nuclear bomb would take out dozens of missiles and would for certain be used as close in missile defense when missiles have their wedges down. Nuclear warheads do zilch unless of the Contact variety...

Relax wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But you still have a couple tons of missile body getting vaporized by the explosion and,

Relax wrote:Why would said body vaporize? Even if there was direct contact? Have you bothered to look at nuclear test explosion sites here on earth? The stand is still standing in DIRECT contact. The dirt with

Jonathan_S wrote:So your claim is that the same Honorverse nuclear warheads which ablate away significant amounts of meters thick starship armor will do nothing to their own missiles' bodies; which are even closer to the blast?

? Yea, I was a bit hyperbolic, but the point stands.

As for your ablation... Said ablation happened when a giant WARSHIP with 3 fusion reactors and all the fusion piping full of plasma running a warship blew up very close by and it had no sidewall/radiation shielding online. Missiles are not that close, there is a reason they use wedges and not nuclear bombs... If nuclear bombs worked, a single nuclear bomb would take out dozens of missiles and would for certain be used as close in missile defense when missiles have their wedges down. Nuclear warheads do zilch unless of the Contact variety...

Except now we seem to be talking past each other

Because I wasn't saying that a nuke was a good counter missile.

You initially responded to a post where I was saying that when a missile's warhead goes off -- many hundred of megatons, basically in contact with the rest of the missile body -- that missile get vaporized by its own warhead.

(And thus turned into some tons of plasma)

So, yeah, that missile is that close. It's closer than 'that close'. It's essentially still bolted onto its warhead at 0 meters away. (Heck your original post seemed to recognize that as it was talking about the warhead going off in contact -- so why are you now seeming to claim it's too far away from its own missile to damage it?)