300 mega-ton fusion bomb? Are you serious? (GalNet)

[Screemonster]

You use several small devices to blow up the exit and supply shafts, leaving the facility buried and isolated. Repeat treatment when they try to dig themselves out.

So basically exactly what was done to La Coupole in WW2. The RAF didn't have anything that could penetrate the dome of the site itself, so instead they dropped earthquake bombs on the surrounding railway tracks and countryside in general, to both destroy the tracks and churn up the ground so badly that new tracks couldn't be laid.

 

[Ddraig]

Frontier usually eyeball some of the numbers when making scifi stuff.
*Looks at Anaconda's magical hull mass*

I wouldn't take any of it seriously.

 

[Sapyx]

...GalNet reports that a 300 mega-ton yield fusion bomb got stolen - "enough to level an entire city"

300 mega-tons? How big are cities in Elite Dangerous?

A reminder, the tsar bomb - the biggest H-bomb ever exploded in real world - had a yield of around 50-60 mega-tons. And that thing would have been enough to level a big city (circle of total destruction of 35 Km).

Cities in ED can be quite large. Look at the night side of any high-population Earth-like, and it's covered in sprawling megacities; the biggest are easily several hundred kilometres across.

Furthermore, cities in ED probably go far underground, much more so than any 21st century city. WWIII would have taught people that going underground is safe. To "destroy an entire city", you'd want something that would punch down and collapse any reinforced underground structures, as well as flattening stuff sitting on the surface.

Finally, the scary thing about the weapon mentioned in the article is not it's destructive capacity, but it's size - it's small enough to be carried away by a thief. A briefcase-sized bomb capable of levelling an entire city is scarier than a bomb the size of an AspX that could do the same job.

I also suspect that the storyteller may have omitted or even changed some details, perhaps in an effort to reduce panic. A briefcase-sized fusion bomb of that yield seems unrealistic. A briefcase-sized antimatter bomb of that yield is much more plausible. The old FE2/FFE lore states that we do have antimatter control - the old "military drives" with their "military fuel" were antimatter-based, rather than hydrogen fusion based. That this is still valid lore in ED is evidenced by the fact that the system description for the Sirius system still mentions the preparation of "military fuel":

...Since 2350, the Sirius Corporation has been using the vast amounts of cheap energy available on Lucifer from coils wrapped around the planet for the synthesis of custom elements (particularly military-grade fuel)...

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Cities in ED can be quite large. Look at the night side of any high-population Earth-like, and it's covered in sprawling megacities; the biggest are easily several hundred kilometres across.

Furthermore, cities in ED probably go far underground, much more so than any 21st century city. WWIII would have taught people that going underground is safe. To "destroy an entire city", you'd want something that would punch down and collapse any reinforced underground structures, as well as flattening stuff sitting on the surface.

Finally, the scary thing about the weapon mentioned in the article is not it's destructive capacity, but it's size - it's small enough to be carried away by a thief. A briefcase-sized bomb capable of levelling an entire city is scarier than a bomb the size of an AspX that could do the same job.

I also suspect that the storyteller may have omitted or even changed some details, perhaps in an effort to reduce panic. A briefcase-sized fusion bomb of that yield seems unrealistic. A briefcase-sized antimatter bomb of that yield is much more plausible. The old FE2/FFE lore states that we do have antimatter control - the old "military drives" with their "military fuel" were antimatter-based, rather than hydrogen fusion based. That this is still valid lore in ED is evidenced by the fact that the system description for the Sirius system still mentions the preparation of "military fuel":

Except, smaller devices evenly distributed across the city would cause far more damage, that's why current day ICBMs don't tend to go over 10 Mt per individual bomb. The only reason (which I suspect in 3300 wouldn't apply) to launch even larger bombs is to destroy reinforced targets that need a high precision hit to be destroyed, for example, missile silos.

 

[insanephoton]

Cities in ED can be quite large. Look at the night side of any high-population Earth-like, and it's covered in sprawling megacities; the biggest are easily several hundred kilometres across.

Furthermore, cities in ED probably go far underground, much more so than any 21st century city. WWIII would have taught people that going underground is safe. To "destroy an entire city", you'd want something that would punch down and collapse any reinforced underground structures, as well as flattening stuff sitting on the surface.

Finally, the scary thing about the weapon mentioned in the article is not it's destructive capacity, but it's size - it's small enough to be carried away by a thief. A briefcase-sized bomb capable of levelling an entire city is scarier than a bomb the size of an AspX that could do the same job.

I also suspect that the storyteller may have omitted or even changed some details, perhaps in an effort to reduce panic. A briefcase-sized fusion bomb of that yield seems unrealistic. A briefcase-sized antimatter bomb of that yield is much more plausible. The old FE2/FFE lore states that we do have antimatter control - the old "military drives" with their "military fuel" were antimatter-based, rather than hydrogen fusion based. That this is still valid lore in ED is evidenced by the fact that the system description for the Sirius system still mentions the preparation of "military fuel":

It's a bit of a jump going from 'portable' to briefcase sized. Later in the article it is described as 'movable', That doesn't necessarily give the impression of something that a person could casually walk through the streets with. The weekly summary says that 'dozens of personnel were gunned down by unknown perpetrators' during the raid, that does sound like more than one person involved

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

"enough to level an entire city"

TL;DR: Exponents are fun and show a 300MT device insufficient for leveling Futureville

~50MT tsar bomba as tested wouldn't even "level" all of New York City proper - never mind the surrounding metro area. The descriptions of buildings destroyed by tsar bomba ~50km away were less durable than those in the Bronx, NY.

There are other metro areas on Earth today larger than NYC's; I expect ED future time cities to dwarf all of these.

Blast damage radius increases with the cube root of yield, so none of these cities will be flattened by a 300MT device. A bunch of smaller bombs would be more effective than a single large one for this sort of thing. This is one of several reasons MIRVs were developed to replace single warhead devices.

Put another way: a city grows in a plane (e.g. area of circle) but the blast grows in a space (e.g. volume of sphere). The exponents are in the cities' favor; adding megatons to the bomb will not outpace adding people to the city.

In any case, if every building just pledges Aisling for 4 weeks then throws on a prismatic shield generator it should be fine.

[I am simplifying; for humans, thermal damage is dangerous and unlike blast damage, it behaves more quadratic than cubic due to properties of thermal radiation and air. But thermal damage that could kill a human wouldn't level any building complying with the local fire code. So the buildings should also equip heat sinks with their prismatics since humans are squishier than buildings.]

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Somebody forgot radiation-kill weapons. Focused ones.

Radiation is great, for area-denial.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Somebody forgot radiation-kill weapons. Focused ones.

Radiation is great, for area-denial.

If you mean me, I didn't, but felt my post was long enough already.

Mostly wanted to focus on the "level an entire city" bit. Radiation not very germane to that.

Also Morbad already made the clog joke so thread over pretty much. Since ED basically deals in magic, anything one can dream up is possible.

 

[rrobes]

All we need is Slim Pickens, riding the bomb on its way to the target, waving his cowboy hat.

Except in this case he would have to have to be wearing a space suit.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

All we need is Slim Pickens, riding the bomb on its way to the target, waving his cowboy hat.

Except in this case he would have to have to be wearing a space suit.

Here you go....

[video=youtube;snTaSJk0n_Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTaSJk0n_Y[/video]

 

[Tikanderoga]

https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/uid/5c667ef723d8ab6ede7748b2

OK, some fluff about secret research outpost and stuff. And GalNet reports that a 300 mega-ton yield fusion bomb got stolen - "enough to level an entire city"

300 mega-tons? How big are cities in Elite Dangerous?

A reminder, the tsar bomb - the biggest H-bomb ever exploded in real world - had a yield of around 50-60 mega-tons. And that thing would have been enough to level a big city (circle of total destruction of 35 Km).

I understand that bigger is better in story telling, but that is a bit over the top. Even a 30 mega-ton fusion bomb would have been a really scary bomb. 300 mega-tons is a bit of overkill in terms of story telling (in my opinion).

I have only 1 question: Where can I buy it, and will it fit on a medium hardpoint?
If buying is not available, I am open to other means of acquisition.

 

[Oopsie Daisy]

https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/uid/5c667ef723d8ab6ede7748b2

OK, some fluff about secret research outpost and stuff. And GalNet reports that a 300 mega-ton yield fusion bomb got stolen - "enough to level an entire city"

300 mega-tons? How big are cities in Elite Dangerous?

A reminder, the tsar bomb - the biggest H-bomb ever exploded in real world - had a yield of around 50-60 mega-tons. And that thing would have been enough to level a big city (circle of total destruction of 35 Km).

I understand that bigger is better in story telling, but that is a bit over the top. Even a 30 mega-ton fusion bomb would have been a really scary bomb. 300 mega-tons is a bit of overkill in terms of story telling (in my opinion).

As if there wasn't enough already to complain about; this guy wants more.

 

[Jpotter]

***WARNING - FUN TIME WASTER AHEAD***

So you say you want to see the effects of a nuke on your home city, or maybe you ex'es city? Here is a fun little site I came across awhile back, don't forget simulate some fallout as well!
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
or
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/missilemap/

Note: sorry I see it only scales up to 100 Megaton bombs, so you'd have to imagine a 300 Megaton; but it would likely impact an area the size of New York to Philly.

[I am simplifying; for humans, thermal damage is dangerous and unlike blast damage, it behaves more quadratic than cubic due to properties of thermal radiation and air. But thermal damage that could kill a human wouldn't level any building complying with the local fire code. So the buildings should also equip heat sinks with their prismatics since humans are squishier than buildings.]

lol - yep the above comment (NY to Philly) includes thermals casualties according to made up fake simulator of course

 

[Jpotter]

Duplicate

 

[Jmanis]

TL;DR: Exponents are fun and show a 300MT device insufficient for leveling Futureville

~50MT tsar bomba as tested wouldn't even "level" all of New York City proper - never mind the surrounding metro area. The descriptions of buildings destroyed by tsar bomba ~50km away were less durable than those in the Bronx, NY.

There are other metro areas on Earth today larger than NYC's; I expect ED future time cities to dwarf all of these.

Blast damage radius increases with the cube root of yield, so none of these cities will be flattened by a 300MT device. A bunch of smaller bombs would be more effective than a single large one for this sort of thing. This is one of several reasons MIRVs were developed to replace single warhead devices.

Put another way: a city grows in a plane (e.g. area of circle) but the blast grows in a space (e.g. volume of sphere). The exponents are in the cities' favor; adding megatons to the bomb will not outpace adding people to the city.

In any case, if every building just pledges Aisling for 4 weeks then throws on a prismatic shield generator it should be fine.

[I am simplifying; for humans, thermal damage is dangerous and unlike blast damage, it behaves more quadratic than cubic due to properties of thermal radiation and air. But thermal damage that could kill a human wouldn't level any building complying with the local fire code. So the buildings should also equip heat sinks with their prismatics since humans are squishier than buildings.]

This one. Using some *very* rough, janky maths (as I'm no explosion expert, but I roughly get how it all works)... if a 50MT device levelled an area of 35km, a 300MT device would only level around 63km diameter. That's a fraction of the width of Australia (at approximately 3860km) To contextualise further, a 63km diameter detonation would wipe out roughly 25% of sydney (=~ 3000km^2 destruction area, with greater sydney =~ 12,000km^2)

 

[Jmanis]

***WARNING - FUN TIME WASTER AHEAD***

So you say you want to see the effects of a nuke on your home city, or maybe you ex'es city? Here is a fun little site I came across awhile back, don't forget simulate some fallout as well!
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
or
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/missilemap/

Note: sorry I see it only scales up to 100 Megaton bombs, so you'd have to imagine a 300 Megaton; but it would likely impact an area the size of New York to Philly.



lol - yep the above comment (NY to Philly) includes thermals casualties according to made up fake simulator of course

Yup, that site helped prove my janky maths are janky, but for what I was trying to do in my head it's still correct

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

***WARNING - FUN TIME WASTER AHEAD***

So you say you want to see the effects of a nuke on your home city, or maybe you ex'es city? Here is a fun little site I came across awhile back, don't forget simulate some fallout as well!
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Note: sorry I see it only scales up to 100 Megaton bombs, so you'd have to imagine a 300 Megaton; but it would likely impact an area the size of New York to Philly.

lol - yep the above comment (NY to Philly) includes thermals casualties according to made up fake simulator of course

I actually used that exact simulator and the 20 psi radius of a 50MT bomb as the "level an entire city" yardstick. That radius misses the Bronx and SI entirely, as well as at least half of Brooklyn and Queens. Much of the outer boroughs are large residential buildings likely to withstand lower pressures (e.g. the 5 psi radius) - in fact many still have "fallout shelter" signs in their basements.

If instead the yardstick is "likely to burn/sicken just about anyone" instead of "level an entire city"... then indeed, tsar bomba dropped over Times Square threatens ~20 million people across at least 4 States. I had better get in my basement when the air raid sirens go off!

In practice, dozens of smaller MIRV warheads dot the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States, rendering my basement an even a less survivable option. MAD and all that jazz.

if a 50MT device levelled an area of 35km

A problem with that 35km number is that any buildings in the remote part of USSR where tsar bomba was tested were not nearly as sturdy as many buildings at the edges of NYC (and also I presume Sydney). That is why I used the other simulator.

Given that blast pressure will always drop off at a cubic rate while urban spraw is constrained at a quadratic rate, and assuming the cities of Achenar are larger and better built than NYC, I conclude they won't be "leveled" by this 300MT device.

In any case I only quibble over "level" the entire city. Certainly New Yorkers are SOL if it's ever boom boom time, and probably Syndeysiders too.

 

[Patrick_68000]

https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/uid/5c667ef723d8ab6ede7748b2

OK, some fluff about secret research outpost and stuff. And GalNet reports that a 300 mega-ton yield fusion bomb got stolen - "enough to level an entire city"

300 mega-tons? How big are cities in Elite Dangerous?

A reminder, the tsar bomb - the biggest H-bomb ever exploded in real world - had a yield of around 50-60 mega-tons. And that thing would have been enough to level a big city (circle of total destruction of 35 Km).

I understand that bigger is better in story telling, but that is a bit over the top. Even a 30 mega-ton fusion bomb would have been a really scary bomb. 300 mega-tons is a bit of overkill in terms of story telling (in my opinion).

Maybe it’s just a keystroke error.

They meant to say 30 initially ?

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

TL;DR: Exponents are fun and show a 300MT device insufficient for leveling Futureville
…

Good point.

 

[anikaiful]

300 mega-tons?

1.) Overkill? Probably.
2.) To ensure deed get done? Might go with even bigger one, just to be certain.

Those bombs can be built literally arbitrarily big, as big as material sources allow (and physical limits, like collapsing on itself due self-imposed gravity). And as humanity of 3300's spread here and there and everywhere, fear of going extinct due a single bomb (however big) is off the table.