SRB Tanks going up to 41 miles and back down in 400 seconds

Duckk wrote:

Because it illustrates what a object free falling from orbit does, although the SRBs didn't reach orbit. Similar to what an free-falling object from the OBS would do.

What makes you think the OBS uses free-falling projectiles instead of an accelerated one?

Nothing especially, was there textev either way? The only reason I mentioned free-falling was that the SRBs were free-falling. I no longer make assumptions about the OBS in light of the author's reticence about it.

If you want an orbital impactor, try Metor crater AZ IIRC tha rock weighed an estimated 50 tons and was about the size of a van and made a crater .5 mile deep and a mile wide.

saber964 wrote:If you want an orbital impactor, try Metor crater AZ IIRC tha rock weighed an estimated 50 tons and was about the size of a van and made a crater .5 mile deep and a mile wide.

that's a good example.

samwichse wrote:M
Solid tungsten is usually the quoted material, as it has an incredibly high melting point (hence it's use as a lightbulb filament... white-hot and unmelted) and it also has a very high density (nearly 20g/cm^3).

Each projectile is commonly quoted as being akin the size of a telephone pole and would hit with the destructive energy of a small nuke. But no fallout...

For more information, look up "rods from God."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

Actually tungsten does burn, light globes are full of argon (a nice INERT gas (that is also a pretty good insulator)). What it doesn't do is melt easily. And by small nuke you mean medium sized conventional bomb (a fuel air blast will do similar damage at less than a thousandth the cost - big rockets cost big money (and dropping the fully fueled booster stage of the ballistic penetrator on the target will do more damage than the penetrator)(due aerodynamic losses etc).
Energy in = Energy out

AirTech wrote:

samwichse wrote:M
Solid tungsten is usually the quoted material, as it has an incredibly high melting point (hence it's use as a lightbulb filament... white-hot and unmelted) and it also has a very high density (nearly 20g/cm^3).

Each projectile is commonly quoted as being akin the size of a telephone pole and would hit with the destructive energy of a small nuke. But no fallout...

For more information, look up "rods from God."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

Actually tungsten does burn, light globes are full of argon (a nice INERT gas (that is also a pretty good insulator)). What it doesn't do is melt easily. And by small nuke you mean medium sized conventional bomb (a fuel air blast will do similar damage at less than a thousandth the cost - big rockets cost big money (and dropping the fully fueled booster stage of the ballistic penetrator on the target will do more damage than the penetrator)(due aerodynamic losses etc).
Energy in = Energy out

While recognizing that falling rods of metal would do much more damage than an empty SRB, for the purposes of the OBS, wouldn't rods of tungsten, or anything else for that matter, require not just a launcher but also considerable refining and manufacturing infrastructure to construct the re-loads? I realize that there are still the manufacturing units such as that used by OWL to construct the new Nimue, but that required inputs which were then exhausted with little or no ability to replace, and I assume that the space based rod manufactory would face the same constraints.

we have no idea about the manufacturing abilities of the OBS, it might have been given a very large stockpile to start with, or might have remote mining tugs it can send to asteroid belts.

beyond the fact that it sits in orbits and strikes whatever it is told or anything electrical, plus has some anti missile systems we know very little about what exactly it can do.

Dauntless wrote:we have no idea about the manufacturing abilities of the OBS, it might have been given a very large stockpile to start with, or might have remote mining tugs it can send to asteroid belts.

beyond the fact that it sits in orbits and strikes whatever it is told or anything electrical, plus has some anti missile systems we know very little about what exactly it can do.

I do believe it was said its cells were refilled after the Armageddon Reef strike.

That suggests that:
1) it has a finitely limited # of shots at any one time (for some reason I'm remembering the # 6)
2) It has (or had) the infrastructure to refill itself. This could have been manual and disappeared with the Hamilicar.

What we don't know is how... adjustable the system can be. Armageddon Reef fubared a small continent - the St Khody strike seemed to be limited to a small village or a castle sized building. It could be Aramagedon Reef drained the whole OBS requiring a full reload, while St Khody was just 1 penetrator.

Theemile wrote:

Dauntless wrote:we have no idea about the manufacturing abilities of the OBS, it might have been given a very large stockpile to start with, or might have remote mining tugs it can send to asteroid belts.

beyond the fact that it sits in orbits and strikes whatever it is told or anything electrical, plus has some anti missile systems we know very little about what exactly it can do.

I do believe it was said its cells were refilled after the Armageddon Reef strike.

That suggests that:
1) it has a finitely limited # of shots at any one time (for some reason I'm remembering the # 6)
2) It has (or had) the infrastructure to refill itself. This could have been manual and disappeared with the Hamilicar.

What we don't know is how... adjustable the system can be. Armageddon Reef fubared a small continent - the St Khody strike seemed to be limited to a small village or a castle sized building. It could be Aramagedon Reef drained the whole OBS requiring a full reload, while St Khody was just 1 penetrator.

I believe that the Armageddon Reef OBS was a one-shot, at least in the sense that it was replaced after that with a more capable OBS. As for St. Khody, I don't think there is any textev of how many units were used to destroy the Abbey. I don't think, however, that the controllers would have relied on a single unit strike. I am sure that they would have launched several cells to ensure complete destruction of the Abbey and surrounds.

Personally, I still prefer the thought that they drop rocks rather than things like tungsten bars. Rocks are, for some strange reason, reasonably common in space, and would require only that they be able to fit into the launch cell with a guidance system attached. A 10 or 20 or even 100 ton rock will do major damage over a much wider area, although they will leave larger craters than tungsten rods as seen on Armageddon Reef. Also a falling rock would, I think, leave a much brighter trace than a tungsten rod, allowing the locals to be more aware of Gods anger.

Keith_w wrote:
I believe that the Armageddon Reef OBS was a one-shot, at least in the sense that it was replaced after that with a more capable OBS. As for St. Khody, I don't think there is any textev of how many units were used to destroy the Abbey. I don't think, however, that the controllers would have relied on a single unit strike. I am sure that they would have launched several cells to ensure complete destruction of the Abbey and surrounds.

Personally, I still prefer the thought that they drop rocks rather than things like tungsten bars. Rocks are, for some strange reason, reasonably common in space, and would require only that they be able to fit into the launch cell with a guidance system attached. A 10 or 20 or even 100 ton rock will do major damage over a much wider area, although they will leave larger craters than tungsten rods as seen on Armageddon Reef. Also a falling rock would, I think, leave a much brighter trace than a tungsten rod, allowing the locals to be more aware of Gods anger.

I find myself doubting that more than one cell would be needed for something the size of an abbey. In fact one hit with a substantial sized rock would probably do it.

As for the other cells, I had the impression that they are spaced out to provide coverage for the whole planet, probably with some overlap.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

Keith_w wrote:
I believe that the Armageddon Reef OBS was a one-shot, at least in the sense that it was replaced after that with a more capable OBS. As for St. Khody, I don't think there is any textev of how many units were used to destroy the Abbey. I don't think, however, that the controllers would have relied on a single unit strike. I am sure that they would have launched several cells to ensure complete destruction of the Abbey and surrounds.

Personally, I still prefer the thought that they drop rocks rather than things like tungsten bars. Rocks are, for some strange reason, reasonably common in space, and would require only that they be able to fit into the launch cell with a guidance system attached. A 10 or 20 or even 100 ton rock will do major damage over a much wider area, although they will leave larger craters than tungsten rods as seen on Armageddon Reef. Also a falling rock would, I think, leave a much brighter trace than a tungsten rod, allowing the locals to be more aware of Gods anger.

I find myself doubting that more than one cell would be needed for something the size of an abbey. In fact one hit with a substantial sized rock would probably do it.

As for the other cells, I had the impression that they are spaced out to provide coverage for the whole planet, probably with some overlap.

Don

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When I think of a cell in this environment, I think of a single missile container, with several cells grouped together in a pod, with several pods spaced around the planet to provide continuous coverage, rather like a missile pod in the Honorverse. Also, when I refered to the missile in my first sentence, I am not necessarily referring to an Honorverse type powered/explosive missile, but rather to whatever object is launched at the target.