Population in SEIV

[Baron Munchausen]

Heh... actually, in space where there isn't as much material to transmit a shockwave it's not that inconceivable to survive a nuclear weapon as long as it's not a 'direct' hit -- detonation in actual contact with the ship.

And remember, scale is everything. What's the size of the warhead? Isn't it easier to load lots of small warheads (a few hundred kilotons?) on smaller missiles than to put the very biggest bomb you can make (50 megatons? 100 megatons?) on larger missiles? It's the usual trade-off: Smaller warheads are much more survivable individually but easier to get a hit with because you can launch more. Larger warheads might wipe out the target completely but with fewer of them available they can be more easily countered various measures.

There was a project in the late 1950s to build a space ship powered by nuclear bombs. Yes, bombs would be dropped out the back and a 'pusher plate' on the underside of the craft with enormous shock absorbers would take the bLast. It was called the Orion Project. Do a Google search for it and you'll find plenty of resources. It's had some recent attemtion due to the son of Freeman Dyson (who was a major contributor) writing a book about it.

[ July 13, 2002, 23:18: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[PvK]

I guess my point is that the game values do not reflect the real-universe differences between weapons, and clearly we all have very different imaginations of what the same things represent.

However, I would say that if one considers that components like Bridge and Life Support can absorb 10 damage points each, that 60 points for a thermonuclear warhead hit seems at least "a bit" light (some would say incredibly so), since a typical smallest unarmored exploration ship can absorb typically 210 damage points.

As for passing through the black hole, again, it seems clear that the only way to enter the destructive zone of one in SE4 is to END the turn within the pull radius of the center, in which case the object takes damage. Moving through the same location on the 2D map and then moving to a safe distance is obviously (to me, anyway) not representing a move into the destructive area. To me, it seems like actually not a bad abstract representation, as long as one doesn't insist on interpreting it too literally and two-dimensionally.

PvK

[Pax]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Heh... actually, in space where there isn't as much material to transmit a shockwave it's not that inconceivable to survive a nuclear weapon as long as it's not a 'direct' hit -- detonation in actual contact with the ship.

Mass to transmit the shockwave is pure gravy. Most of the energy put out by an atomic device isn't directly kinetic in nature anyway ... radiant energy of various types. Also remember, the mass of the bomb itself will impact your craft at very high speeds. A near-miss in space will still push you around (hence hte Orion you mention below ). Potentially quite violently ...

Lackof proximity mainly produces a more-diffuse / less-intense dose of the radiant energies of the bLast. Otherwise, touching or 100m or 1km or whatever away, a bLast is a bLast.

Some randomness in damage would be VERY nice especially here, to reflect proximity of detonation; it's not like you can "shaped charge" effect a nuclear bLast, after all ...

And remember, scale is everything. What's the size of the warhead? Isn't it easier to load lots of small warheads (a few hundred kilotons?) on smaller missiles than to put the very biggest bomb you can make (50 megatons? 100 megatons?) on larger missiles? It's the usual trade-off: Smaller warheads are much more survivable individually but easier to get a hit with because you can launch more. Larger warheads might wipe out the target completely but with fewer of them available they can be more easily countered various measures.

With a lithium-hydride packed Hydrogen Bomb (of sufficient mass and size), the limit is much closer to a gigaton than a mere 100 megaton bLast. IIRC, the USA and/or USSR have test-detonated Hydrogen Bombs of up to 300 or 400 megatons ... as non-recently as 30 years ago, at the height of the cold war.

There was a project in the late 1950s to build a space ship powered by nuclear bombs. Yes, bombs would be dropped out the back and a 'pusher plate' on the underside of the craft with enormous shock absorbers would take the bLast. It was called the Orion Project. Do a Google search for it and you'll find plenty of resources. It's had some recent attemtion due to the son of Freeman Dyson (who was a major contributor) writing a book about it.

Ah yes, the Orion ... one of my Favorites. The novel Footfall includes the actual (in the story ofc) construction, launch, and use of such a craft. Unfortunately, I'm suffering brainlock on the writer's name ATM ...

When piloting an Orion-drive space-craft launching from a planetary surface, just remember: if the first bomb is a dud, that's not a problem. If the SECOND bomb is a dud ... you have a definite problem. Mainly owing to the fact that the first one throws you a mile or so up, and if the second fails ... you fall. Heh.

[Baron Munchausen]

When you are talking about hardened miltary targets, mass is essential for doing damage on anything but a direct hit. In an atmosphere the intense radiation heats up the stuff around it and causes the explosion. Thus the damage. Outside a certain radius even a nuclear warhead isn't going to do much damage in space. This would depend on the heat resistance of the skin of your ship, of course.

The Orion project actually included the 'propellant' -- stuff for the nuclear explosion to heat up -- with the bomb. It wasn't just a bald nuke dropped out of the craft. You can see the details as I said, by going to a search engine. So, it was not relying on just the energy.

I would really like to know where you get the information about any nuclear tests larger than 50 megatons. According to every official 'Nuclear Arms Testing' site I've ever visited the largest test ever was a Soviet nuke of 50 Mgtn which it was believed could be souped up to 100. Where on earth could anyone have tested anything larger?

Edit: The 'Tsar Bomb' was the largest nuclear weapon ever constructed or detonated. While only tested at 50 Megatons, it was intended to be a 100 megaton device. It was 'useless militarily' and was created purely for political purposes.

NB: Sakharov was the designer! (1961)

http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew...ovwarhead.html

[ July 14, 2002, 03:40: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Skulky]

just out of curiosity why would something of 100 megatons be useless militarily? too big to fly in?

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, that was their choice of words on the site that I found. I guess no nuclear bomb is truly 'useless' but it's sure possible for it to be 'out of spec' or even 'counter-productive'. Think about the whole context of warfare. This must be a very expensive bomb to build, with refined uranium being a very scarce and precious resource, and also very difficult to deliver without killing the pilot. Even assuming it could be delivered with an ICBM of some sort, saving the 'pilot' question, it's so huge that it would wipe out far more than the target. At the least this is a waste of your precious resource, refined uranium. And unless you really are a lunatic and seeking to cause as much destruction as possible, it doesn't do any good to take out hundreds of square miles of countryside along with the military base that you were aiming at. What it does do is make you look bad to kill the vast number of civilians that would be killed along with the military personel. So from a 'pragmatic' perspective of waging war 'intelligently' I guess it is essentially useless. Weird as it sounds to talk of pragmatic and intelligent use of nuclear weapons...

[Kammak]

RE: Military utility of big nukes,

As the accuracy of delivery systems increased, the yield of individual warheads was decreased and MIRV'ing came into being. Put a bunch of "smaller" warheads on a single delivery platform, so you can hit and destroy more targets effectively. Cheaper to deliver (vice one uber-massive warhead) and gives you greater reduncy to counter the Soviet ABM systems that were in place during the cold war.

The primary killer for "modern" nuclear devices is the overpressure and then bLast - radiation has always been an un-intended and unwelcome side effect - except for the "neutron bomb" devices.