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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 3:56:01 GMT
Y'know, we almost need SRMs for those interceptor missiles. If you only need to get out there and burst your warhead close enough to get a mission-effective kill, a single high-thrust, single-pulse solid rocket motor would kick a lightweight missile at over 100 Gs. And yeah, it's been done in real life, in atmosphere. Check out the U.S. Sprint ABM program.
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 3:49:32 GMT
Wound up doing a really funky j-hook approach at less than 100 m/s and salvoed about 60 flak missiles in clusters of five and twenty. Shredded it real good and got a win.
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 3:41:13 GMT
That's not how tampers work. The act a bit as neutron mirrors but mostly the tamper is provided mechanical containment to prolong the principle reaction. "Uranium-238 and thorium-232 (and some other fissionable materials) cannot maintain a self-sustaining fission explosion, but these isotopes can be made to fission by an externally maintained supply of fast neutrons from fission or fusion reactions. Thus, the yield of a nuclear weapon can be increased by surrounding the device with uranium-238, in the form of either natural or depleted uranium, or with thorium-232, in the form of natural thorium. This approach is particularly advantageous in a thermonuclear weapon in which uranium-238 or thorium-232 in the outer shell of the secondary capsule is used to absorb an abundance of fast neutrons from fusion reactions produced within the secondary. The explosive yields of some weapon designs have been further increased by the substitution of highly enriched uranium-235 for uranium-238 in the secondary." "All so-called "fission-fusion-fission" weapons (i.e., all conventional modern thermonuclear warheads) employ the additional step of "jacket fissioning," using fusion neutrons. This works as follows: the high-energy or "fast" neutrons generated by fusion are used to fission a fissionable jacket located around the fusion stage. In the past this jacket was often made of natural or depleted uranium; but today's weapons in which there is a premium on weight and size (i.e., virtually all modern strategic weapons) use moderately-to-highly enriched uranium as the jacketing material. The fast fission of the secondary jacket in fission-fusion-fission bombs is sometimes referred to as a "third stage" in the bomb, but it should not be confused with the obsolete true three-stage thermonuclear design, in which there existed another complete tertiary fusion stage." Back on topic, though... does the game actually recognize this, or does the use of a high-density refractory metal like uranium impede the effectiveness of the bomb?
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 1:44:44 GMT
U-235 could not possibly have this effect, and for any fusion-boosted warhead with a high enough pressure and/or neutron to flux to achieve criticality in U-235 armor, the contribution from the armor would be extremely small. Nuclear warheads are touchy things. It's really hard to make it work right. Oh, not from compression to critical mass/density... I'm talking about sheer neutron flux initiating the reaction. After all, that's what they do with the U-238 tamper on a Teller-Ulam style warhead.
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 0:52:56 GMT
Hmmm... I had been trying to lob a bunch of flak missiles at it, but haven't had much success in actually scoring a hit yet. The damned ship evades every time. >.<
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 29, 2016 0:50:59 GMT
I've discovered that I can add fissionable armor to ships and missiles in the ship editor. This it quite interesting because of the fact that the neutron flux from a detonating nuclear bomb can initiate a criticality event in a nearby piece of U-235 or render U-238 (aka Depleted Uranium, or DU) fissionable. So, that raises the question:
If I were to place a "jacket" of U-235 or U-238 around a nuke, would that increase the yield of the warhead? Personally, I'm leaning towards U-238 for an armored "nosecone" for a missile/torpedo, which will serve double duty as protection for the vehicle while closing in on its target, and will (hopefully) increase yield when detonated.
Thoughts?
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 28, 2016 23:46:08 GMT
For the life of me, I cannot successfully complete the Main Belt Extraction mission. Either the enemy ship shreds my forces, or, for some unknown reason it fails me automatically before I even get a shot off.
Anyone have any successful strategies to share?
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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 28, 2016 23:11:31 GMT
I don't know why people are having so much trouble with this one... nailed it on the third try.
EDIT: Went back and reran the mission for grins and giggles. Strategy was to swarm the offending warship with low-powered missiles to wipe out much of its defensive abilities (stripping off the guns, radiators, killing the engine, etc). After all, a tumbling vehicle will have a much harder time of attacking your inbound missiles. Follow-up strike was a full salvo of the heavy missiles. Although not a technical success (ship completely disabled), it DID punt the ship outbound at a rather high velocity. I finished it off with another swarm of light missiles and just holed it in a hit-to-kill mode. fifty odd missiles hitting in a matter of seconds tends to put it down hard.
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