Comparing weapons

Expert snuggler wrote:If I remember right, non-explosive fuel chemicals run about an order of magnitude better in energy density than high explosives.

Absolutely but getting them to go BANG! is very mass intensive so they have low density in an explosive situation. Mainly becasue you need a very specific fuel/air mixture so in a bomb situation (The original topic) you end up with most of the mass being air/oxidiser.

saber964 wrote:

Try Torpex it was an explosive used in WWII by the U.S. it was 50% more potent than an equivalent weight of TNT. Also RDX is about 2.5 x more potent than TNT.

Yes? I´m well aware of those. Even just dynamite has over twice the energy potential of TNT.

While gasoline has over 16 times more energy per amount. Which is why i noted that even FAE doesn´t come close to that kind of development as needed, despite cheating(because it requires a separate oxidizer). And once you add the oxidizer to gasoline, it´s suddenly less than 4 times as energydense compared to TNT. Which is roughly where you find thermobaric warheads.

Meanwhile, the post i replied to argued that in 400 years we should have something that manages to have an energycontent over 1000 times that of TNT.

This is roughly what can be expected from nuclear bombs.
And almost halfway to what you can get from antimatter/matter bombs with perfect conversion.

6L6 wrote:Look up metalic hydrogen, don't know if any has been made yet but some think it could be used as rocket fuel or explosive.

And with that you get your 500lb bomb down to about 300lb.
If you´re very VERY lucky maybe 150lb.

AND if you can make it explode. AND you can make it explode without needing an oxidizer.

To get a viable 1lb bomb act as a 500lb bomb of today, you will need it at minimum to use nuclear fission. But as all of that 1lb cannot be fissile material, you need nuclear FUSION as minimum to get the required energy density from the material. Except of course for the trouble that fusion bombs take even more "helper" parts to be functional, which rules out that as well.

Meaning, that you´re now down to using a small amount of antimatter as your explosives.
2 magnitudes higher energy density than nuclear fusion(3 magnitudes above fission).
10 magnitudes higher than chemically based energy. And a nightmare for storage.

So far however, noone has figured out how to make antimatterbased bombs. Though USA has researched it for decades.

alj_sf wrote:
What is 20% more energetic than HMX is the (relatively) stabilized version with TNT called CL-20, and it is when considering it as propellant. There is less than 50% of Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane in CL-20. But I cited it because it is a compound almost stable, the metal azides or the peroxydes of peroxides and many others are more potent besides the little problem of stabilizing them.

And yes, an order of magnitude is a tall order for a safe compound, but the actual most potent stable explosives, HMX and octonitrocubane (sp?), are not very packed structures and so there is room for denser explosives.

Do remember that what the poster i replied to did not "demand" ONE magnitude more powerful explosives, he demanded THREE magnitudes more power, AND wanted it crammed into a 1lb package.

Getting ONE magnitude isn´t hard, just make a FAE that uses the atmospheric oxygen instead of bringing its own oxidizer.
Already done. BUT NOT A USEFUL WEAPON.

Tenshinai wrote:

alj_sf wrote:
What is 20% more energetic than HMX is the (relatively) stabilized version with TNT called CL-20, and it is when considering it as propellant. There is less than 50% of Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane in CL-20. But I cited it because it is a compound almost stable, the metal azides or the peroxydes of peroxides and many others are more potent besides the little problem of stabilizing them.

And yes, an order of magnitude is a tall order for a safe compound, but the actual most potent stable explosives, HMX and octonitrocubane (sp?), are not very packed structures and so there is room for denser explosives.

Do remember that what the poster i replied to did not "demand" ONE magnitude more powerful explosives, he demanded THREE magnitudes more power, AND wanted it crammed into a 1lb package.

Getting ONE magnitude isn´t hard, just make a FAE that uses the atmospheric oxygen instead of bringing its own oxidizer.
Already done. BUT NOT A USEFUL WEAPON.

I believe you meant, not useful in a 1lb package?

Tenshinai wrote:

6L6 wrote:Look up metalic hydrogen, don't know if any has been made yet but some think it could be used as rocket fuel or explosive.

And with that you get your 500lb bomb down to about 300lb.
If you´re very VERY lucky maybe 150lb.

AND if you can make it explode. AND you can make it explode without needing an oxidizer.

To get a viable 1lb bomb act as a 500lb bomb of today, you will need it at minimum to use nuclear fission. But as all of that 1lb cannot be fissile material, you need nuclear FUSION as minimum to get the required energy density from the material. Except of course for the trouble that fusion bombs take even more "helper" parts to be functional, which rules out that as well.

Meaning, that you´re now down to using a small amount of antimatter as your explosives.
2 magnitudes higher energy density than nuclear fusion(3 magnitudes above fission).
10 magnitudes higher than chemically based energy. And a nightmare for storage.

So far however, noone has figured out how to make antimatterbased bombs. Though USA has researched it for decades.

And of course nukes and handwavium have distinctive radiation signatures that Merlin does NOT want to be giving off.

For that matter, so does that "handwavium" that Merlin mentioned.

The "metallic hydrogen bomb" probably does, but requires Fed tech materials science to keep contained (because they're strong enough that no mortal can make it), materials that can all too easily survive in fragments large enough to be recovered and used to prove angelic/demonic intervention, ANOTHER thing Merlin doesn't want to have happen.

What's the advantage of a "primitive" 500 pound bomb over some hypothetical smaller more advanced weapon? It doesn't require any exotic elements to make so it's cheap for the Cave's fabricators to churn out in terms of resource cost. And once used, anything that survives and gets recovered (because you can't always count on the target being at sea) like steel fragments won't obviously be outside Safehold's tech base. Nor does it give off any distinctive signature that would set off the OBS's alarms.

In short:
1) Material resource and fabrication cost. Bombs this primitive are literally dirt cheap to make for a Fed Tech fabricator.
2) Doesn't leave behind any debris or residue of obvious "supernatural" origin.
3) Doesn't set off advanced remote sensors as being obviously technologically advanced.

One more thing about material costs: Using a primitive bomb instead of a more advanced one is like using a stone pickaxe instead of a diamond one. The diamond pickaxe is obviously better, but it's WAY more expensive, enough so that you don't want to waste it doing nothing but mining large quantities of cobblestone. For mining cobblestone, a stone pickaxe is perfectly serviceable and more can be made from that same cobblestone you're mining!

So while a 500 lb bomb isn't as good as more advanced 10 lb bomb or whatever, the 500lb can be spammed as much as Merlin likes to simply because it's made from common, easily available materials while the advanced 10 lb bomb is ridiculously expensive in comparison, enough so that Merlin will only use them for "special" occasions where the 500 lb bomb won't work.

Relax wrote:
I believe you meant, not useful in a 1lb package?

No, i meant trying to make it a useful weapon that does not have special requirements for it to work.

It´s ALSO not workable in a 1lb package.

Tenshinai wrote:

Relax wrote:
I believe you meant, not useful in a 1lb package?

No, i meant trying to make it a useful weapon that does not have special requirements for it to work.

It´s ALSO not workable in a 1lb package.

You mean work for the safeholdians and their current tech. Don't have the aircraft to fly to 10,000m and drop such devastating bombs that can casually take out a 1/2 kilometer of real estate. Also do not have the large vacuum chambers able to produce said the powdered aluminum, assemble the bombs and store the powdered aluminum to keep the oxygen out.

An interesting table of explosive power:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_ ... ess_factor

Comparisons to Black Powder show how much more effective the more modern explosives will be, but still, we're not talking about orders of magnitude more effective...

CRC wrote:An interesting table of explosive power:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_ ... ess_factor

Comparisons to Black Powder show how much more effective the more modern explosives will be, but still, we're not talking about orders of magnitude more effective...

It's rather telling that there are only TWO non-nukes listed that are more than TWICE as powerful as TNT. And one of them is a thermobaric bomb!