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Post by nivik on Oct 7, 2016 19:18:40 GMT
My mistake on the misquote. Still, if these work properly I think you gents may have revolutionized our little space warfare sim.  I'm going to give it a shot with a conventional explosive, myself. Material limits should be much less of an issue, and if I can translate 30% of an 1.0 kg octogen charge's explosive force into kinetic energy, that's around 2.14 MJ of KE. Applied to a one-kilo projectile, that's another 731 m/s of velocity, which ain't bad. I suspect a flat charge against the back of a flat plate will be the most efficient configuration with the least amount of radial wastage. (Oh. Full disclosure! The math I did a while back was wrong. Right now my missiles are hitting with the force of around 1.5 kilograms of TNT, not tons. Not nearly as ludicrous as I'd originally estimated.) I'm going to do a theoretical comparison between KKVs and EFP (explosively formed penetrator) warheads: KKV: dry mass of 2.61kg (1.61kg rocket body, 1.00 kg penetrator), terminal velocity of 3500 m/s: kinetic energy of 15.9 MJ. EFP: penetrator mass of 500g, warhead mass of 500g, terminal velocity of 3500 m/s. Octogen energy density is 7.14 MJ/kg, energy in 500g is 3.57 MJ. Kinetic energy of the penetrator before detonation is 3.06 MJ, total maximum theoretical energy is 6.63 MJ. At 30% energy extraction from the explosive, penetrator energy would be 4.49 MJ, with the impact velocity being approximately 4,238 m/s. Hmm. In this particular instance, the KKV seems to be more effective due to the mass of the rocket body, which isn't considered in the latter case. However, the majority of the rocket body is lightweight and fragile, so I'm not sure how much of an effect that part of the KKV has on the effective armor penetration. In the case of the EFP, the final projectile is a 500 gram plate at 4.2 km/s, which is still a massive impact, particularly for a weapons system whose launcher weighs about 100 kilograms. I think the main advantage of explosive-driven EFPs is that they're an alternative to KKVs that can still be extremely tiny and very cheap, but sacrifice maximum range energy for effectiveness over their entire range envelope. A KKV at short range tickles. An EFP warhead at short range is still a half-kilo at over 700m/s. None of this really relates to nuclear EFPs, but I was gonna do the math for my super lightweight missile systems anyway, so I figured I may as well put my findings up for others. |
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Post by leerooooooy on Oct 7, 2016 19:45:45 GMT
I'm not sure if that's modeled, but I was able to replicate the result at much greater distances. I used a 30cm osmium plate on top of a 1 gigaton nuke. I aimed it by placing a weapon on the front, which turns the missile into a "drone". I was able to blast through 2cm of osmium and 1 cm of aramid fibre at a distance of ~10km. EDIT: Nvm, that was just the cannon I mounted. The nuke I use is too powerful and vaporises the plate. Did you say 1 gigaton nuke? Did you say ONLY 1 GIGATON???  go big or go home |
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Post by nivik on Oct 7, 2016 20:29:54 GMT
Did you say 1 gigaton nuke? Did you say ONLY 1 GIGATON??? go big or go home That weighs more than four of my destroyers combined. And costs more than ten.The tritium decay alone produces 7 MW of power, if my math is correct. You've built the world's largest, most dangerous RTG. |
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Post by leerooooooy on Oct 7, 2016 20:38:21 GMT
Did you say ONLY 1 GIGATON??? go big or go home That weighs more than four of my destroyers combined. And costs more than ten.The tritium decay alone produces 7 MW of power, if my math is correct. You've built the world's largest, most dangerous RTG. it's no longer the largest  I might have a problem |
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Post by ross128 on Oct 7, 2016 20:44:14 GMT
For conventional explosives, an armor ring around the charge (made of something light, but strong enough to hold together) and maybe a backstop plate might help focus the blast. It wouldn't quite be a shaped charge, but it would be as close as we can get with the current system. It would add weight though.
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Post by nivik on Oct 7, 2016 23:12:31 GMT
That weighs more than four of my destroyers combined. And costs more than ten.The tritium decay alone produces 7 MW of power, if my math is correct. You've built the world's largest, most dangerous RTG. it's no longer the largest I might have a problem Correction: someone has a problem. You have no problems. Not for very long after you find out what dwarf planet they live in/on, anyway. Edit: Quick update. I'm testing conventional EFP warheads (8 kg copper penetrator, 2 kg octogen charge, 15x400cm missile) and initial results are extremely promising. First test was against 25 cm of vanadium chrome steel and was a clear penetration, with a huge heat-bloom on the opposite side of the hull. |
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Post by coaxjack on Oct 8, 2016 0:00:00 GMT
That weighs more than four of my destroyers combined. And costs more than ten.The tritium decay alone produces 7 MW of power, if my math is correct. You've built the world's largest, most dangerous RTG. it's no longer the largest I might have a problem Made a similar yield warhead, and tried mounting it on some kind of missile...any kind of missile. It turns out 11,700 tons of bomb isn't particularly easy to fly around with. Though presumably if you were in a position to flatten an entire hemisphere of an enemy planet, you have secured the area beforehand |
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Post by Dhan on Oct 8, 2016 0:22:46 GMT
it's no longer the largest I might have a problem Made a similar yield warhead, and tried mounting it on some kind of missile...any kind of missile. It turns out 11,700 tons of bomb isn't particularly easy to fly around with. Though presumably if you were in a position to flatten an entire hemisphere of an enemy planet, you have secured the area beforehand Launch it next to your ship and detonate it and see if it sends your ship into another dimension. |
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Post by coaxjack on Oct 8, 2016 1:03:31 GMT
Made a similar yield warhead, and tried mounting it on some kind of missile...any kind of missile. It turns out 11,700 tons of bomb isn't particularly easy to fly around with. Though presumably if you were in a position to flatten an entire hemisphere of an enemy planet, you have secured the area beforehand Launch it next to your ship and detonate it and see if it sends your ship into another dimension. I blew one up in a friendly fleet just to see, and all the armor of every ship boiled off, and then they were all in a nauseating hundreds- or thousands- of RPM spin end-over-end. There were some bits and bobs that somehow surfed the wave of the explosion away at a few dozen km/s. Strangely enough, the bomb itself (well, the actual ovoid object the game uses to depict it) survived, and I could still select it but not interact with it in any way. |
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Post by ross128 on Oct 8, 2016 1:06:07 GMT
The Nuclear EFP missiles are up in the design thread if anyone wants to look at them. Though after posting it I thought of something that should have been obvious: they were inflicting such massive overkill against anything they were pointed at (if they hit), why not scale them down? They have such an incredible surplus of excessive firepower, sacrificing some of that to make them lighter, cheaper, and nimbler has no downsides at all.
The new 1.6Mt version is still every bit as excessively lethal as the old 10MT version (well okay, maybe not every bit, but I haven't made any targets tough enough to tell the difference!), but allows me to make the Osmium cap much thinner without vaporizing it. The thinner cap saves so much weight that I can scale the fuel tank down and go back to using a single gimballed rocket, because the missile is no longer suffering excessive wobble induced by the heavy warhead. I can even remove the counterweight without losing guidance.
And because the missiles are so much smaller and cheaper, I can bring hundreds of them and launch them in flights of 20 or more, solving the inconsistency problem with volume. For small warheads at least, I see little or no reason not to put a thin layer of Osmium on the nose just to enhance their lethality (the 1.6Mt NEFP uses just 6mm).
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Post by diamondback on Oct 8, 2016 1:53:08 GMT
I've been using 10 kt nukes with a couple cm of boron armor around the front half, fired at about 6 km/s from coilguns. The blast effects seemed a little odd, this would explain a lot of it. It seems to spray something, Apparently now the boron at about a 15 degree cone. I'll have to amend the shape and material to take advantage of this.
I love how the physics are so deep that there is an element of mystery as to how much it really simulates.
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 8, 2016 2:14:19 GMT
That weighs more than four of my destroyers combined. And costs more than ten.The tritium decay alone produces 7 MW of power, if my math is correct. You've built the world's largest, most dangerous RTG. it's no longer the largest I might have a problem Ok so I took this nuke and put it on a missile!  This is the station that launches them at less than 5cm/s for the low power draw of 1GW!  I also blew it up right next to my super dreadnaught:  It was not very effective but against actual real threats that do not weigh in at 1,720,000,000 kg and cost 126 GC. For example it killed effortlessly a fleet of 10 gunships! They were reduced to rapidly spinning dead. Also the missile does not do homing well so I need to just tell it to go towards the enemy and then I command detonate it  The armor on the super dreadnaught was all green: 6cm basalt fiber, 9cm Osmium, 4 METERS of silica aerogel, 15cm of basalt fiber, 2.5 METER void, 5cm Basalt Fiber. Each of the turrets has 100cm of Basalt Fiber and max barrel armor. The big radators are 41 cm thick diamond followed by 33cm of additional diamond armor. This is not at all a reasonable ship but I really like it! |
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Post by Durandal on Oct 8, 2016 2:41:38 GMT
The Nuclear EFP missiles are up in the design thread if anyone wants to look at them. Though after posting it I thought of something that should have been obvious: they were inflicting such massive overkill against anything they were pointed at (if they hit), why not scale them down? They have such an incredible surplus of excessive firepower, sacrificing some of that to make them lighter, cheaper, and nimbler has no downsides at all. The new 1.6Mt version is still every bit as excessively lethal as the old 10MT version (well okay, maybe not every bit, but I haven't made any targets tough enough to tell the difference!), but allows me to make the Osmium cap much thinner without vaporizing it. The thinner cap saves so much weight that I can scale the fuel tank down and go back to using a single gimballed rocket, because the missile is no longer suffering excessive wobble induced by the heavy warhead. I can even remove the counterweight without losing guidance. And because the missiles are so much smaller and cheaper, I can bring hundreds of them and launch them in flights of 20 or more, solving the inconsistency problem with volume. For small warheads at least, I see little or no reason not to put a thin layer of Osmium on the nose just to enhance their lethality (the 1.6Mt NEFP uses just 6mm). Confirmed nuclear charges work. Still testing. |
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Post by nivik on Oct 8, 2016 3:31:16 GMT
The Nuclear EFP missiles are up in the design thread if anyone wants to look at them. Though after posting it I thought of something that should have been obvious: they were inflicting such massive overkill against anything they were pointed at (if they hit), why not scale them down? They have such an incredible surplus of excessive firepower, sacrificing some of that to make them lighter, cheaper, and nimbler has no downsides at all. The new 1.6Mt version is still every bit as excessively lethal as the old 10MT version (well okay, maybe not every bit, but I haven't made any targets tough enough to tell the difference!), but allows me to make the Osmium cap much thinner without vaporizing it. The thinner cap saves so much weight that I can scale the fuel tank down and go back to using a single gimballed rocket, because the missile is no longer suffering excessive wobble induced by the heavy warhead. I can even remove the counterweight without losing guidance. And because the missiles are so much smaller and cheaper, I can bring hundreds of them and launch them in flights of 20 or more, solving the inconsistency problem with volume. For small warheads at least, I see little or no reason not to put a thin layer of Osmium on the nose just to enhance their lethality (the 1.6Mt NEFP uses just 6mm). Confirmed nuclear charges work. Still testing. The 15.0x400cm KKV and CEFP seem to have similar performance characteristics, and at their extreme range can penetrate 50.0cm of RCC. I'll put them up in the design thread. |
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Post by leerooooooy on Oct 8, 2016 10:37:00 GMT
captinjoehenryI made a significantly smaller missile  silica gel is a lot lighter and a lot better vs lasers, by the time you are in railgun range you should detonate it
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