05-23-2023, 05:36 AM | #21 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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05-23-2023, 06:37 AM | #22 |
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
Little Boy was 15 kt, Fat Man was 20 kt.
OK, the Tsar Bomba has been brought up but it's important to keep in mind that was from an era when nuclear bombs were to be delivered individually in single bombers, such that maximizing the damage done by each bomber was critical. Modern nuclear bombs are delivered in missiles usually with MIRV capabilities (i.e. deploying bombs that target multiple separate locations), and this necessitates smaller bombs to avoid fratricide (i.e. one detonation knocking out the other devices) and to reduce weight. Thus, most modern US nuclear bombs are believed to be in the 500 kt range, but each missile fired drops like a dozen. Countries that pursue a single bomb design (i.e. China until the mid 2010s for example) usually go for around a 5 Mt device. |
05-23-2023, 07:32 AM | #23 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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05-23-2023, 08:28 AM | #24 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
6 to 10 or just 3 for any Minutemans still in service.
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Fred Brackin |
05-23-2023, 08:40 AM | #25 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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We (and probably everyone else) has already had that higher concentration anyway. During Supernova 1987j our neutrino detectors got more neutrinos in 10 seconds or so than they did in a year without supernovas that were only 170,000 ly away. The levels when the Crab Nebula supernova went (only c. 6000 ly distant) would have been higher than that and when the supernova (or multiples) that formed the Local Bubble exploded during pre-history (c. 500 ly) there would have been even more. Perhaps we can't be truly sure of anything except that such levels of neutrinos don't kill cavemen but neutrinos just don't interact with normal matter enough to produce much effect.
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Fred Brackin |
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05-23-2023, 10:12 AM | #26 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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Of course, then you'd probably just end up with spaceships using nukes against each other, as nukes apparently produce a lot of neutrinos, so the shields would be useless against them.
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GURPS Overhaul |
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05-23-2023, 10:37 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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I wouldn't think it was the particle accelerators that produced the neutrinos so much as the high energy collisions between particles when the beam reaches its' target. A force field might prevent those collisions. <shrug>Every thousand years there'll be a supernova somewhere in the galaxy (maybe more often when you count the Magellanic clouds) and all the force fields would go "Poof" anyway.
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Fred Brackin |
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05-25-2023, 09:42 PM | #28 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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05-26-2023, 06:43 AM | #29 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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There's no doubt a section of one of their manuals that outlines the doctrine for what to do if your forcefield is disabled (which could be because of other flaws in the device, maintenance or logistics problems, enemy action, sabotage, etc). Supernovae taking them out isn't a reason not to put them on the ships, any more than all those other reasons would be. |
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05-26-2023, 08:33 AM | #30 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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You also get the "problem" (common to FTL but not the worst of the FTL problems)that once you've observed a supernova somewhere you'll know when that supernova's neutrino front will arrive everywhere else. Very patient species could use this knowledge to prepare for combat when they know force fields wii be out (which will probably not be at anywhere near the same time for their home system) but their targets may be surprised. The supernova thing may not be a reason to omit fields on ships but it's a fairly good reason not to rely on force fields to protect habitats floating in the atmospheres of hostile planets like you sometimes see (as in the vignette at the front of UT's Defenses chapter).
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Fred Brackin |
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Tags |
damage, energy, nuclear weapons |
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