Fuel capacity of Honorverse ships

Just perused ECHOS OF HONOR where Honor Harrington ambushes the Peeps by sneaking up on them using fusion rockets rather than impeller drive. Disregarding the fact that the power output of her fusion rockets rivaled the power of the star, I did a quick calculation of the needed mass ratio. Her ships were about 10% fuel by mass. Liquix Deuterium is about 14% of the density of water. A million ton BC would need fuel tanks with a volume of one million cubic meters. Think a sphere a bit over 100 meters in diameter. Probably multiple smaller fuel tanks.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Just perused ECHOS OF HONOR where Honor Harrington ambushes the Peeps by sneaking up on them using fusion rockets rather than impeller drive. Disregarding the fact that the power output of her fusion rockets rivaled the power of the star, I did a quick calculation of the needed mass ratio. Her ships were about 10% fuel by mass. Liquix Deuterium is about 14% of the density of water. A million ton BC would need fuel tanks with a volume of one million cubic meters. Think a sphere a bit over 100 meters in diameter. Probably multiple smaller fuel tanks.

Given their control of gravity, maybe they could compress it a bit more?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Just perused ECHOS OF HONOR where Honor Harrington ambushes the Peeps by sneaking up on them using fusion rockets rather than impeller drive. Disregarding the fact that the power output of her fusion rockets rivaled the power of the star, I did a quick calculation of the needed mass ratio. Her ships were about 10% fuel by mass. Liquix Deuterium is about 14% of the density of water. A million ton BC would need fuel tanks with a volume of one million cubic meters. Think a sphere a bit over 100 meters in diameter. Probably multiple smaller fuel tanks.

I did the math on how much energy the exploding fusion reactor had. It was totally absurd. As as leaves a 100km+ wide crater on a planet, blows the atmosphere off and changes the orbit.

kzt wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Just perused ECHOS OF HONOR where Honor Harrington ambushes the Peeps by sneaking up on them using fusion rockets rather than impeller drive. Disregarding the fact that the power output of her fusion rockets rivaled the power of the star, I did a quick calculation of the needed mass ratio. Her ships were about 10% fuel by mass. Liquix Deuterium is about 14% of the density of water. A million ton BC would need fuel tanks with a volume of one million cubic meters. Think a sphere a bit over 100 meters in diameter. Probably multiple smaller fuel tanks.

I did the math on how much energy the exploding fusion reactor had. It was totally absurd. As as leaves a 100km+ wide crater on a planet, blows the atmosphere off and changes the orbit.

You are thinking 15 million Megatons yield?

Power output of Honorverse ships probably in the Exawatt range. You saying that an expliding fusion reactor
Nearly instaneously releases the energy equivalent of half a day's power output.

This seems more like the impact crater from a crashing battlecruiser.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:
Power output of Honorverse ships probably in the Exawatt range. You saying that an expliding fusion reactor
Nearly instaneously releases the energy equivalent of half a day's power output.

This seems more like the impact crater from a crashing battlecruiser.

Yeah. Consider the energy needed to vaporize the hull plating as described at the distance given. Assume the hull is made of just iron, which makes finding the constants easy and also a conservative assumption.

kzt wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:
Power output of Honorverse ships probably in the Exawatt range. You saying that an expliding fusion reactor
Nearly instaneously releases the energy equivalent of half a day's power output.

This seems more like the impact crater from a crashing battlecruiser.

Yeah. Consider the energy needed to vaporize the hull plating as described at the distance given. Assume the hull is made of just iron, which makes finding the constants easy and also a conservative assumption.

Okay.

Got it.

Calculation based on Weber's discription of collateral damage.

Weber's description of collateral damage based on handwavian.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Calculation based on Weber's discription of collateral damage.

Weber's description of collateral damage based on handwavian.

Yup. Due to the inverse cube function nukes of any reasonable size are just bright flashes at say 100 km. You have to get close to do real damage. Like single digit KM if not closer.

To work, the Honorverse has to have its own physics. A virtual perpetual motion machine from the wedge enables 6 MT of spaceship to accelerate at 500g, almost indefinitely, think of how much fuel is needed to accelerate an OTL rocket into orbit at say 5g? Even at 99.9999% efficiency the 0.0001% of that power being radiated would shine across any solar system.
I remember the old adage, don't look too closely into what goes into making sausages or behind the scenes in politics. Just enjoy the stories.

Bill Woods wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Just perused ECHOS OF HONOR where Honor Harrington ambushes the Peeps by sneaking up on them using fusion rockets rather than impeller drive. Disregarding the fact that the power output of her fusion rockets rivaled the power of the star, I did a quick calculation of the needed mass ratio. Her ships were about 10% fuel by mass. Liquix Deuterium is about 14% of the density of water. A million ton BC would need fuel tanks with a volume of one million cubic meters. Think a sphere a bit over 100 meters in diameter. Probably multiple smaller fuel tanks.

Given their control of gravity, maybe they could compress it a bit more?

I was thinking hydrogen / deuterium compressed to near metallic densities.

kzt wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Calculation based on Weber's discription of collateral damage.

Weber's description of collateral damage based on handwavian.

Yup. Due to the inverse cube function nukes of any reasonable size are just bright flashes at say 100 km. You have to get close to do real damage. Like single digit KM if not closer.

When detonated in an atmosphere, nuclear weapons effects scale with the inverse cube function because of atmospheric attenuation of thermal and nuclear radiation as well as shockwaves.

When detonated in space where there is no medium to absorb energy, the effects should be an inverse square function.