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A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment

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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by Joat42   » Fri Oct 14, 2022 6:26 am

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Loren Pechtel wrote:But look at the size difference between a missile and a 10-km asteroid.


Exactly. If you want to delve into the details, a KEW just like an asteroid has a potential energy that is released as kinetic energy when it hits something. The interesting part here is that the composition and the size determines how that potential energy is converted to different types of measurable energy.

Two projectiles that are vastly different in size and composition but with the same potential energy will release said energy differently.

An asteroid for example, will start converting large amounts of potential energy to heat when it enters an atmosphere - compare that to a KEW that is designed to reach its target with as little loss of energy as possible.

The size directly affects how the energy is distributed on impact. A sledgehammer hitting an iron-plate under a foot of water for example, creates a big splash and dents the plate while a bullet with the same potential energy creates a small splash and punches right through the plate. The former will most likely make you dripping wet while the latter most likely wont.

---
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by cthia   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:33 am

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I would think a KEW could cause earthquakes if it hit on a fault-line.

Definitely.

BTW, why are KEWS deployed instead of energy weapons? An energy weapon would save the cost of a KEW with the same result, and possibly less collateral damage.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by tlb   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 7:35 am

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cthia wrote:BTW, why are KEWS deployed instead of energy weapons? An energy weapon would save the cost of a KEW with the same result, and possibly less collateral damage.

When you compare a KEW to a nuclear weapon of the same yield, the KEW is cheaper and less polluting. Why would you think a chunk of metal was more expensive (the motive and navigation pieces being equal)?
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by cthia   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 8:57 am

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:BTW, why are KEWS deployed instead of energy weapons? An energy weapon would save the cost of a KEW with the same result, and possibly less collateral damage.

When you compare a KEW to a nuclear weapon of the same yield, the KEW is cheaper and less polluting. Why would you think a chunk of metal was more expensive (the motive and navigation pieces being equal)?

A KEW is cheaper and less polluting than a laser fired from the ship? The HV equivalent of our very own SDI should cost nothing to fire and it is not dirty.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by tlb   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 9:44 am

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cthia wrote:BTW, why are KEWS deployed instead of energy weapons? An energy weapon would save the cost of a KEW with the same result, and possibly less collateral damage.

tlb wrote:When you compare a KEW to a nuclear weapon of the same yield, the KEW is cheaper and less polluting. Why would you think a chunk of metal was more expensive (the motive and navigation pieces being equal)?

cthia wrote:A KEW is cheaper and less polluting than a laser fired from the ship? The HV equivalent of our very own SDI should cost nothing to fire and it is not dirty.

My bad; I do not know now, how I misread your question. Yes, a Laser (or Graser) would be less polluting and cheaper and less effective. Fired into a ceramacrete tower, it would spend all its energy on the top floors, rather than penetrating down to the basement. Plus an energy beam has blooming problems with the atmosphere, which reduces the energy on target; consider the steam generated if it went through a rain cloud (the KEW basically ignores atmospheric resistance).

Considering what the energy beam does to ceramacrete, I am not sure how much less pollution it actually creates.
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by cthia   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 10:01 am

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:BTW, why are KEWS deployed instead of energy weapons? An energy weapon would save the cost of a KEW with the same result, and possibly less collateral damage.

tlb wrote:When you compare a KEW to a nuclear weapon of the same yield, the KEW is cheaper and less polluting. Why would you think a chunk of metal was more expensive (the motive and navigation pieces being equal)?

cthia wrote:A KEW is cheaper and less polluting than a laser fired from the ship? The HV equivalent of our very own SDI should cost nothing to fire and it is not dirty.

My bad; I do not know now, how I misread your question. Yes, a Laser (or Graser) would be less polluting and cheaper and less effective. Fired into a ceramacrete tower, it would spend all its energy on the top floors, rather than penetrating down to the basement. Plus an energy beam has blooming problems with the atmosphere, which reduces the energy on target; consider the steam generated if it went through a rain cloud (the KEW basically ignores atmospheric resistance).

Considering what the energy beam does to ceramacrete, I am not sure how much less pollution it actually creates.

Grasers are described as stilletos punching through the thick armor of a warship. Perhaps warships should be built with ceramecrete.

Anyway, I always wondered why some version wasn't developed instead of KEWs. I don't recall textev explaining why, so I assumed it has something to do with causing some sort of damage to the atmosphere. Basically, I got nothing.


Sure it'll kick up some dust. No different than the KEWs pulverizing ceramecrete.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by tlb   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 10:21 am

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cthia wrote:Grasers are described as stilletos punching through the thick armor of a warship. Perhaps warships should be built with ceramecrete.

Warships are packed with important things, so just penetrating the hull is bound to hit something. in a ceramacrete tower, things are much more spread out; so wreaking a few stories might not accomplish much.
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by cthia   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 10:28 am

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:Grasers are described as stilletos punching through the thick armor of a warship. Perhaps warships should be built with ceramecrete.

Warships are packed with important things, so just penetrating the hull is bound to hit something. in a ceramacrete tower, things are much more spread out; so wreaking a few stories might not accomplish much.

If a graser can punch through the thick armor of warships, why do you feel it would only penetrate a few stories of ceramecrete?

BTW, I considered beam divergence possibly being a problem but I quickly dismissed it when I considered the abysmally short range from orbit to ground, as opposed to ship to ship. Sure, there is no atmosphere in space, but neither would grasers be firing at such long ranges.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 4:29 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:Grasers are described as stilletos punching through the thick armor of a warship. Perhaps warships should be built with ceramecrete.

Warships are packed with important things, so just penetrating the hull is bound to hit something. in a ceramacrete tower, things are much more spread out; so wreaking a few stories might not accomplish much.

And warships have just meters of armor.
A ceramacrete tower has around a hundred km of atmosphere to absorb energy and then probably at least 1/2 meter of cermacrete (and another 2+ meters of air) for each floor you punch through; and they've got hundreds or thousands of floors. Basically while its 'armor' is far less efficient on either a volume or tonnage basis it's got vastly more volume and tonnage of armor than any mobile warship could carry. (A piece of paper is darned poor armor compared to even a bit of steel plate, but try firing through the entire row of an encyclopedia and the sheer amount of pages is shockingly effective -- yet the size and mass means nobody is arguing that tanks should be armored by encyclopedias :D)


Basically pumping terrawats of x-rays into the atmosphere is not so dissimilar to the effect of stretching nuclear bomb's flash and shockwave (primarily caused by its emitted x-rays turning the air to very high pressure plasma) into a nice linear line down from orbit.

Not only is that highly ionized plasma going to absorb a lot of the energy mount's output, but it's going to put out enough flash and heat to start fires; and seriously injure, if not kill, exposed humans for quite a significant distance around. And that's before the overpressure shock wave starts knocking things down.



So a KEW will be more efficient, in that it will lose less of its energy to the atmosphere than an x-ray or gamma-ray laser would; and thus deliver more of its energy to the target and less into incinerating and knocking down the surrounding area. That's generally seen as a good thing - hence using small KEWs instead of a ship's energy mounts.
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Re: A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Sun Oct 23, 2022 8:03 pm

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cthia wrote:BTW, why are KEWS deployed instead of energy weapons? An energy weapon would save the cost of a KEW with the same result, and possibly less collateral damage.


Remember, ships have grasers. The atmosphere will be basically opaque to them. A graser shot at a planet is going to make a big sky boom and little else--think Chelyabinsk.
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