HFQ Offical Snippet #18

Tonto Silerheels wrote:chrisd wrote:

Going back to college chemistry, it was a lot more complicated to nitrate toluene than glycerine, AND they would only let us get to the "di-nitro" stage whereas Nitro-glycerine could be prepared "On-the-bench" if kept sufficiently chilled.

I present for your enjoyment http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/.

~Tonto

Explosive name Detonation
velocity (f/s)
1,3,5-trinitrobenzene 24442
1,3,5-Triazido-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene 23950
4,4’-Dinitro-3,3’-diazenofuroxan 32808
Trinitrotoluene 22638
Trinitroaniline 23950
Tetryl 24836
Picric acid 24114
Dunnite 23458
Methyl picrate 22310
Ethyl picrate 21325
Picryl chloride 23622
Trinitrocresol 22474
Lead styphnate 17060
Triaminotrinitrobenzene 24114
Methyl nitrate 20669
Nitroglycol 23950
Nitroglycerine 25262
Mannitol hexanitrate 27100
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate 27559
Erythritol tetranitrate 26575
Ethylenedinitramine 24836
Nitroguanidine 26903
Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine 28707
Cyclotetramethylene tetranitramine 30840
Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane 31168
Tetranitroglycoluril 30020
Octanitrocubane 33136
Nitrocellulose 23950
Urea nitrate 15420
Acetone peroxide 17388
Methyl ethyl ketone peroxide 17060
Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine 14764
Mercury fulminate 13944
Lead azide 15190
Silver azide 13123
Ammonium nitrate 17290
Explosive name Detonation
velocity (f/s)

There are a shopping list of explosives that could be used, but for shell filling insensitive is really good as a belting with a hammer has nothing on firing out of a gun. Adding a little ammonium nitrate to TNT helps too (Amatol/Torpex).

I don't know much about booms but this is what I'm thinking will/may be the effects.
1. wood will shatter along fiber lines so we get splinters? yes/no
2. shockwave will shatter and disperse wood the first time it passes through so we get big splinters moving fast. yes/no
3. reflected shockwave from river bottom, slope. cliff will further shatter previous large fragments and increase their velocity. small fragments will not be re-shattered (?!) but will be accelerated to faster velocity yes/no

4. Therefore more powerful explosive will reduce the size of fragments and move them faster and further. Too big a generalization?

5. in earthen fortifications, more powerful explosive will displace more earth (bigger hole) and shock may will collapse bunkers built into the fortification.
6. is blastwave effect governed by inverse square laws?

should this be a separate thread?

Thank you.

runsforcelery wrote:I'm very sorry for how late this one is coming in. Sharon has been really, really sick for the last couple of weeks with a respiratory problem that just isn't going away, and while she's been under the weather, I've had to pick up and carry a lot of other balls. There just haven't been enough hours in a day to keep up with everything, I'm afraid.

Real life trumps the virtual one and family trumps pretty much everything. I'll add my hopes for a quick and full recovery, and thanks for taking time from important things to supply a fix to the snippet addicts.

jms

Graydon wrote:

chrisd wrote:Going back to college chemistry, it was a lot more complicated to nitrate toluene than glycerine, AND they would only let us get to the "di-nitro" stage whereas Nitro-glycerine could be prepared "On-the-bench" if kept sufficiently chilled.

Does Charis/Safehold have the technology and the requisite purity of feedstock to go the "tri-nitration" of toluene?

My first thought was that it was more likely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picric_acid than TNT; that was the earlier shell-filler explosive. (With a detonation velocity of about 24,000 fps, which is over 23,000...) Looking it up the real difference in synthesis -- for picric acid, done on the lab bench in the 1740s by alchemists! -- is the feedstock, and getting toluene isn't difficult once you've got an oil industry doing fractional distillation, something Charis has been set up to be developing.

Picric acid has more boom than TNT, but it's corrosive and forms unstable metal salts when used as a shell filler. Dynamite has all sorts of problems with stability, particularly when it gets hot; tropical Old Charis and Emerald and Tarot probably don't want to deal with sweaty dynamite.

Since Dr. Lywys knows all this, I think it probably is TNT.

I lean toward picric acid. The numbers are right, and there's textev to support it. From LAMA p. 117, Dr. Lywys after joining the Inner Circle:

By the time he'd returned her to Tellesberg, she and Owl had worked out exactly what they needed to do to reproduce Poudre B, the original smokeless powder of Old Earth, and also the more stable cordite which had followed it.

Picric acid was also a possibility, especially as a high-explosive shell filling, given the enormous quantities of coal tar being produced by Howsmyn's coking ovens, but it's tendencies towards long-term instability made Lywys-and the rest of the circle-less than eager to charge full speed in that direction. Producing it would be relatively straightforward, however, and could probably be accomplished on a useful scale more rapidly that Poudre B or cordite.

Despite it's shortcomings, the inner circle might have decided to use it in a limited way because of it's power and near-term availability. It could be an interim solution until they can develop enough of a chemical industry to provide feedstock for TNT. It's a case of good-enough available right now vs. having to wait another year or so for perfect.

jms

jmseeley wrote:

Graydon wrote:My first thought was that it was more likely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picric_acid than TNT; [...]
Since Dr. Lywys knows all this, I think it probably is TNT.

I lean toward picric acid. The numbers are right, and there's textev to support it. From LAMA p. 117, Dr. Lywys after joining the Inner Circle:

By the time he'd returned her to Tellesberg, she and Owl had worked out exactly what they needed to do to reproduce Poudre B, the original smokeless powder of Old Earth, and also the more stable cordite which had followed it.

Picric acid was also a possibility, especially as a high-explosive shell filling, given the enormous quantities of coal tar being produced by Howsmyn's coking ovens, but it's tendencies towards long-term instability made Lywys-and the rest of the circle-less than eager to charge full speed in that direction. Producing it would be relatively straightforward, however, and could probably be accomplished on a useful scale more rapidly that Poudre B or cordite.

Despite it's shortcomings, the inner circle might have decided to use it in a limited way because of it's power and near-term availability. It could be an interim solution until they can develop enough of a chemical industry to provide feedstock for TNT. It's a case of good-enough available right now vs. having to wait another year or so for perfect.

That's certainly a strong argument for going with an initial run of picric acid. And the initial reports from Siddarmark would have tended to encourage going with least-time-to-produce.

Plus, of course, you know -- if you're doing munitions planning for the Empire of Charis -- that you're going to be swapping all the cocoa-powder quick-firing gun breeches in the near future, to handle the change in charge sizes that comes with cordite. So you may not have done a full production run of those, either. DELTHAK's present armament might be in the character of a live fire test rather than the initial deployment of something intended for general issue, and if that's true you could certainly plan on expending all your picric acid-filled shells before there's much risk of instability.

runsforcelery wrote:Guys ---

I'm very sorry for how late this one is coming in. Sharon has been really, really sick for the last couple of weeks with a respiratory problem that just isn't going away, and while she's been under the weather, I've had to pick up and carry a lot of other balls. There just haven't been enough hours in a day to keep up with everything, I'm afraid. Anyway, this one's a bit longer as a sort of consolation prize.
_________________________________________

Wait... a snippet from The Sword of the South and one from Hell's Foundations Quiver? On the same day?

You're too nice to us.

To quote my favorite Unioc: "Your species is soft, sir."

Thanks David. I hope Sharon's feeling a bit better, by now.

gcomeau wrote:..snip..
I'm just left feeling curious... how are these guys measuring detonation velocities of over 20,000 fps without things like high speed cameras? (I mean, I know Merlin could tell them, but that would probably raise questions among then uninitiated how exactly he knows that...hard to argue "Seijin vision" for that one...)

There are several low tech methods to measure detonation speeds, which of the D'Autritche method is (was?) most common.

Airtech, if you googled all this information online, I wonder how many National Security wires you have tripped, good research though!

ChaChaCharms wrote:Airtech, if you googled all this information online, I wonder how many National Security wires you have tripped, good research though!

Wikipedia has a number of obscure entries....(plus knowing where to look, I'll hold off though on the nuclear weapons design details that got dumped on the net in the nineties...(but knowing how to spell nuclear in russian helps))

Since we now know that Hanth has been put to the back of the line for the new toys, I wonder what will happen when he gets to Evyrtyn. Will he slip around and cut off the canal behind Rychtyr and lay siege to the place? Much of the gear they have sent him would seem suited to defensive siege lines.

At Evyrtyn Hanth will face the St Klymans in significant numbers for the first time. How will that change his tactics?

Also, it has been noted here that Hanth is short of manpower. Presuming that to be true, will DE or EHM reinforce him?

Finally, we know from LAMA that there were still some TL militia in the Ft. Darymahn area... I wonder who is cleaning them out now that the balance has been tipped against them by Hanth's success in ejecting the Dohlarans from the Thesmar area and the destruction of thr Army of Shiloh.

This snippet rounds out the picture somewhat...but still lots to speculate about.

Don