HFQ Offical Snippet #18

Hi Graydon,

I concur with your reasoning that its picric acid.

By the time the temple is able to copy it, the war will be over, the EoC will have moved on to more powerful and stable compounds and the CoGA stick-in-the-mud's will have to deal with the instability issues.

L

Graydon wrote:

jmseeley wrote:*quote="Graydon"*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.[/quote]

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

Very sorry, bit I can't get that link to open

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?

Some slightly off-topic reminiscences:

There are all sorts of stories about things like that. My old chemistry teacher (long gone, God rest his soul) told us about his attempt to prepare chlorine dioxide. Apparently, he had bent down to retrieve something from the floor at the moment it blew, and so was out of the direct line of the shockwave. He said the only visible trace of his apparatus was a rubber bung embedded in the ceiling.

I also remember attending a lecture by a visiting professor about the reactions of tetra-fluoro hydrazine. My main reason for remembering it was the last question in the question-and-answer session after the lecture.

Question: "Wasn't this a rather hazardous series of experiments?"

Answer: "Not really. Only about half of them blew up."

lyonheart wrote:Hi Graydon,

I concur with your reasoning that its picric acid.

By the time the temple is able to copy it, the war will be over, the EoC will have moved on to more powerful and stable compounds and the CoGA stick-in-the-mud's will have to deal with the instability issues.

L

IIRC, there are two other advantages to Picric Acid. First, extracting phenol from coal tar is relatively (!) easy. Second, picric acid is the only high explosive that can be reliably detonated by black powder.

That said, I still think the explosives used in this snippet are dynamite.

-- Bob G

chrisd wrote:

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

Very sorry, bit I can't get that link to open

Works fine for me in Firefox. Do you have a proxy server that is blocking access to "prohibited" sites?

Doesn't seem to be that, FFT,

This is the response I get :-

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: str_split() in /home/corante/public_html/pipeline/connect.php(1) : regexp code(1) : eval()'d code(1) : regexp code on line 1

chrisd wrote:Doesn't seem to be that, FFT,

This is the response I get :-

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: str_split() in /home/corante/public_html/pipeline/connect.php(1) : regexp code(1) : eval()'d code(1) : regexp code on line 1

Works for me in Firefox but not in IE 11 in regular or compatability mode.

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.

I am so sorry to hear about Sharon. I hope she gets better soon. I know how that can be.

I really am glad you took the time to post the latest snippet RFC.

n7axw wrote: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

Hi Don

I remember seeing this recently in BCG's second to last 'thoughts' from Allyntyn [section VI of November 896]*, when he is thinking over the deployment of the final echelon of Charisian troops...

'Two more independently deployed mounted brigades where being sent south from the capital,where they would sson be teaching the TL gueriallas in the triangle of Southmarch lands between Southguard and the Taigyn river...'

* that's the one thing these books could do with - chapter/section indications on each page - would make texteving so much easier!

isaac_newton wrote:

n7axw wrote: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

Hi Don

I remember seeing this recently in BCG's second to last 'thoughts' from Allyntyn [section VI of November 896]*, when he is thinking over the deployment of the final echelon of Charisian troops...

'Two more independently deployed mounted brigades where being sent south from the capital,where they would sson be teaching the TL gueriallas in the triangle of Southmarch lands between Southguard and the Taigyn river...'

* that's the one thing these books could do with - chapter/section indications on each page - would make texteving so much easier!

Now that you mention it, I remember that.

As for the chapter/sector referrences being more available, I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly. I'm doing this mostly on my nook where the paging is different than my dead tree editions. I have no idea if it is still different for kindle or other electronic reading devices. A way of referencing material common to all systems would be most welcome. About the only book I know of that uses a system of chapter and verse that comes off the same no matter which system you are using is the Bible!

Thanks again for the reference.

Don