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I don't think radiation is all that impressive in space. Solar radiation already mandates ships be made to protect the crews from it. All you really get out of a nuke is a bigger bang.

 Wyzilla wrote:
No no. What you use in space combat is nukes. High yield weapons with large shockwaves to damage enemy ships releasing potent amounts of radiation to kill the enemy crew in a sudden burst. Lasers wouldn't be used for offensive purposes, but to destroy incoming enemy missiles.

Uh... theres no medium in space through which a shcokwave could propogate through (I.E. nukes are useless as anything other than a radiation weapon, but given the radiation shielding inherent to ALL spacecraft, I think their efficacy would be questionable.

There would still be a shockwave of energy. Just not as big as in atmosphere.

Yes, a shockwave of energy is called 'radiation'. I already discussed that.

What exactly do you think a 'shockwave' is? In case you don't know, a shockwave is in actuality a displacement of the molecules forming the medium in which an explosion occurs (air, water, etc.) which results in an overpressure wave that travels/propagates until the medium (again, air/water) can balance out the excess pressure. Similarly an implosion results when the medium is rapidly consumed in an area, causing an area of lower pressure which is rapidly filled in by the surrounding area.

In short, no, there is no shockwave that would cause physical damage (aside from the physical effects of radiation exposure).


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As further clarification: Shockwave, in this instance, is being used in place of the more scientifically correct "blast wave", as a shockwave (or shock wave as its more commonly called)refers to a specific aerodynamic phenomenon which isn't necessarily associated with explosions (but still requires there to be a medium through which it propogates).

When people say "radiation" they typically mean the deadly Gamma and Beta radiation. Not the heat or electrical force that is also technically "radiation". This wave of heat would be the bigger thing that a nuke does.

There might also be some larger debris, depending on how the bomb is constructed. A nuke might actually be just as dangerous to the firer in space, since there is very little around to absorb the energy, even over a distance.

Distance does actually reduce the energy in space, if the energy isn't completely focused in one direction like a nuke. Its why the closer you get to a star the more solar radiation there is. This is also why lasers are effective over basically infinite distances in space, or at least practically infinite.

On that note, maybe we'd see nukes with a "shaped" charge that focuses most of the energy in one direction.

 Grey Templar wrote:
When people say "radiation" they typically mean the deadly Gamma and Beta radiation. Not the heat or electrical force that is also technically "radiation". This wave of heat would be the bigger thing that a nuke does.

You mean the thermal RADIATION and electromagnetic RADIATION?

Well, I hate to disappoint, but the thermal effects largely disappear in vacuum. There is simply nothing for the heat to transfer to, so you end up generating higher frequency EM radiation instead (to include beta/gamma waves).

In regards to your follow up post re: distance and energy in space, you're somewhat incorrect there. While in principal and in theory you are absolutely correct, what you failed to account for was that in space there is no radiation attenuation resulting from atmosphere, geography, etc. which means that radiation dosage is much higher over greater distances than it is here on earth. I.E. if x yield warhead has a lethal radiation dosage within y distance on earth, then y distance in space will be significantly greater.

http://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm

EDIT: Whoops. Missed some posts.


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chaos0xomega wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
When people say "radiation" they typically mean the deadly Gamma and Beta radiation. Not the heat or electrical force that is also technically "radiation". This wave of heat would be the bigger thing that a nuke does.

You mean the thermal RADIATION and electromagnetic RADIATION?

Well, I hate to disappoint, but the thermal effects largely disappear in vacuum. There is simply nothing for the heat to transfer to, so you end up generating higher frequency EM radiation instead (to include beta/gamma waves).

In regards to your follow up post re: distance and energy in space, you're somewhat incorrect there. While in principal and in theory you are absolutely correct, what you failed to account for was that in space there is no radiation attenuation resulting from atmosphere, geography, etc. which means that radiation dosage is much higher over greater distances than it is here on earth. I.E. if x yield warhead has a lethal radiation dosage within y distance on earth, then y distance in space will be significantly greater.

http://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm

The problem with this is that radiation still falls off following the square-cube law, even without attenuation from the atmosphere. And you're still getting all that in the form of ionizing radiation, which is necessarily shielded against as a prerequisite for space travel, so you're looking primarily at its thermal effects still. Even assuming the target wasn't shielded, you'd need enough radiation to disable the crew instantly - roughly 5000 rem - which still means point blank range, or they're going to spend a long time killing you before they die from radiation poisoning.

And thats assuming the ship is only 1 protective shell against radiation that if cracked you can poison. When in reality ships will be compartmentalized with various bulkheads that will include radiation shielding.

Sure, the distance at which the radiation will be lethal will be great than in atmosphere, for a human with no protective gear. Not a ship thats been necessarily designed to protect its crew from the deadly radiation that normally in space, and on top has probably been made even more protective given we are tossing nukes around as ship to ship weapons.

Ship design would vary greatly depending on where its built and what it does.

space bound ones will be as thick as it wants to be and such.

Vessels that need to enter atmosphere will probably be muuuch lighter.

If anything i can see nukes with shrapnel fronts being more useful. if they can guide and calculate it properly.

you get the double whammy of emp/radiation, and objects flying in a spread pattern.

Did you even look at the chart in the link I provided? Look at Fig 2. The atmosphere attenuates a *lot* more radiation than you're giving it credit for, and the the square-cube law a lot less than you realize.

"Figure 2 shows the dosage-distance relationship for a 20-kiloton explosion when the burst takes place at sea level and when the burst takes place in space. We see that in the range 500 to 5,000 roentgens the space radii are of the order of 8 to 17 times as large as the sea-level radii. At lower dosages the difference between the two cases becomes even larger."

Although, yes, it is largely shielded against as I said earlier.

 Desubot wrote:
Ship design would vary greatly depending on where its built and what it does.

space bound ones will be as thick as it wants to be and such.

Vessels that need to enter atmosphere will probably be muuuch lighter.

If anything i can see nukes with shrapnel fronts being more useful. if they can guide and calculate it properly.

you get the double whammy of emp/radiation, and objects flying in a spread pattern.

I don't think we'll ever get proper space ships that can land in atmosphere. At least not before we get anti-gravity and such.

We're gonna just have ships that are built and permanently reside in space. Then we'll have shuttles that can travel between ships and planets.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Ship design would vary greatly depending on where its built and what it does.

space bound ones will be as thick as it wants to be and such.

Vessels that need to enter atmosphere will probably be muuuch lighter.

If anything i can see nukes with shrapnel fronts being more useful. if they can guide and calculate it properly.

you get the double whammy of emp/radiation, and objects flying in a spread pattern.

I don't think we'll ever get proper space ships that can land in atmosphere. At least not before we get anti-gravity and such.

We're gonna just have ships that are built and permanently reside in space. Then we'll have shuttles that can travel between ships and planets.

probably will be the case though im just spit balling.

The radiation from the nuke might have a useful secondary purpose of blinding sensors. Especially if its combined with your idea of shrapnel. The target ship won't be able to detect the incoming objects very well.

Anything that focuses on a large explosion would not be effective as the only thing that is likely to happen is pieces of ship and missile go flying in every direction... provided you hit the target (nukes tend to explode above targets don't they, so the explosion hits the ground with a flattening force).

You best and ultimate goal should be penetration of the ships hull in as many locations as possible. This means a simple ball bearing is probably more deadly or a guided missile or to be space cool... "torpedo". Perhaps space flak (which even as far back as WW1 we could have ball bearing or shrapnel rounds aimed in a direction, which are amazing to see in action) would be a common weapon.

It is likely that the space ships will have compartments, and compartments and as shown in real life they can work. That is a form of defense I actually missed in the OP. The ship would have to have multiple rooms though, imagine if a vital room was punctured... they would not be able to access it safely and unlike on earth, there is no country a few hours away or ship nearby to help them out.

Well yeah, you're definitely way more vulnerable in space to having your vital systems shut down.

Hence why ships will likely have redundant systems everywhere, and they'll be heavily protected in the central areas of the ship.

Edit: Didn't quite realize how much this thread exploded.

I really like this site for general info on space, ships, and other aspects.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarintro.php

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well yeah, you're definitely way more vulnerable in space to having your vital systems shut down.

Hence why ships will likely have redundant systems everywhere, and they'll be heavily protected in the central areas of the ship.

The only real weakness any boat has is its propulsion method

take out the engine and they are fethed.

 Wyzilla wrote:
No no. What you use in space combat is nukes. High yield weapons with large shockwaves to damage enemy ships releasing potent amounts of radiation to kill the enemy crew in a sudden burst. Lasers wouldn't be used for offensive purposes, but to destroy incoming enemy missiles.

Shockwaves? You'd get potential radiation effects (although ships would likely need to be shielded fairly well again radiation for general crew safety already) and damage from impacting debris from the weapon, but there's nothing through which a shockwave can propagate in space...

Valete,

JohnS

 cygnnus wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
No no. What you use in space combat is nukes. High yield weapons with large shockwaves to damage enemy ships releasing potent amounts of radiation to kill the enemy crew in a sudden burst. Lasers wouldn't be used for offensive purposes, but to destroy incoming enemy missiles.

Shockwaves? You'd get potential radiation effects (although ships would likely need to be shielded fairly well again radiation for general crew safety already) and damage from impacting debris from the weapon, but there's nothing through which a shockwave can propagate in space...

Valete,

JohnS

Yes so it would be an expensive, very limited use shrapnel weapon... not even a shrapnel weapon really. Actually, I think it's called fragmentation when bits from the device itself is damaging (like fragmentation grenade), but shrapnel when it's actually apart of the weapon to shoot out shrapnel. Well in World War one this was the case anyway. Not that it matters the terminology, but yes nukes would be wasteful.

Nukes don't leave behind shrapnel. They reduce their entire casing into plasma, which, incidentally, isn't nearly as entertaining as Games Workship would have you believe. Think attacking someone by trying to shoot them with a hose full of steam.


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 Desubot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well yeah, you're definitely way more vulnerable in space to having your vital systems shut down.

Hence why ships will likely have redundant systems everywhere, and they'll be heavily protected in the central areas of the ship.

The only real weakness any boat has is its propulsion method

take out the engine and they are fethed.

That might not be as easy as you'd think. For instance, if the ship is using an Orion drive to get around, you essentially have to blow off a giant sheet of iron, possibly a couple feet thick, on the end of a massive heavy duty piston. On the other hand, you've got nuclear salt water rockets, which damaging basically means you've scored a point blank hit with a nuke. Of course, NSWRs are the living embodiment of the Kzinti rule, so...

 Laughing Man wrote:
Nukes don't leave behind shrapnel. They reduce their entire casing into plasma, which, incidentally, isn't nearly as entertaining as Games Workship would have you believe. Think attacking someone by trying to shoot them with a hose full of steam.

I was wondering how much fragmentation there would be with a nuke, regardless any bomb not designed with shrapnel or with fragmentation casing is not likely to be effective in space, or armour penetration. Yea plasma is just a word for "really hot" stuff in a lot of Sci Fi I noticed.

 Laughing Man wrote:


That might not be as easy as you'd think. For instance, if the ship is using an Orion drive to get around, you essentially have to blow off a giant sheet of iron, possibly a couple feet thick, on the end of a massive heavy duty piston. On the other hand, you've got nuclear salt water rockets, which damaging basically means you've scored a point blank hit with a nuke. Of course, NSWRs are the living embodiment of the Kzinti rule, so...

Never said it was going to be easy.

even the Culture fights wars - both in space and secret dirty wars that they don't talk about

 Laughing Man wrote:
Nukes don't leave behind shrapnel. They reduce their entire casing into plasma, which, incidentally, isn't nearly as entertaining as Games Workship would have you believe. Think attacking someone by trying to shoot them with a hose full of steam.

Don't think that's entirely true. Project Orion showed pretty clearly that carbon steel spheres could survive in close proximity to a nuclear blast with very little surface abrasion. Not that it'd probably make a very viable weapon, but you could probably design a massive nuclear-powered shotgun blast.

Valete,

JohnS

Hmm, next item for research is "EMP pulse" wonder what shielding needed, electronics die, life gets really hard.
Would have to see the different flavors of nukes.
Ground zero of a nuke would disperse scary fast.
Probably debris free a fraction of a second after.
Designed like a grenade, the energy with debris would hole a ship easily.
Infra-red output would be scary.

Thats included in the shielding against radiation. If it wasn't, all your electronics would die from the radiation the sun emits.

Also, EMP Pulse is redundant. EMP stands for Electromagnetic Pulse.

I think the Nuke is a dead end weapon for space. Maybe ships will carry them for planetary attacks?

I was certain EMP is not all that dangerous, normally having minimal effect and even at worst all it does is brief disruption. Something definitely worth looking into.

Oh if it effects electronics it fries them good. Its just such shielding would basically be mandatory for all space craft because of solar radiation to begin with. Making it a little stronger to survive a nuke would be very easy.