A couple of queries about The Weapon That Shall Not Be Named

munroburton wrote:I'll just leave this here.

If he is, he is, though personally I don't think so. He's too consistent and has been around too long. Either way, though, I don't really care; while I wish he wouldn't spam the forums with his insanity, it *is* fun to yell at him regardless.

MuonNeutrino wrote:

munroburton wrote:I'll just leave this here.

If he is, he is, though personally I don't think so. He's too consistent and has been around too long. Either way, though, I don't really care; while I wish he wouldn't spam the forums with his insanity, it *is* fun to yell at him regardless.

From another thread:

Lord Skimper wrote:How about mounting an autocannon bore firing on a missile, apollo sized.

Are you really sure?

I'll concur that replying to him does help forum users develop their essay-writing skills.

Jonathan_S wrote:That said, since those same sidewalls will eat up a missile's wedge without flinching the GL logically seems like it would be a stronger gravity phenomenon that that.

I don't think so.

I think it's very likely that a missile's drive (and the missile) would be destroyed crossing the wedge perimeter of the target starship. This is why laser-heads were developed, so that the warhead could detonate well outside the wedge of the target (30-50,000km compared to a wedge approx 100km across).

A wedge collision directly with sidewall (assuming the target had no wedge of its own) would go straight through the sidewall and cut the target in half. This would not be good for either ship as the catastrophic failure of the fusion bottles would effectively be a point-blank detonation of a multi-gigatonne bomb

nrellis wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That said, since those same sidewalls will eat up a missile's wedge without flinching the GL logically seems like it would be a stronger gravity phenomenon that that.

I don't think so.

I think it's very likely that a missile's drive (and the missile) would be destroyed crossing the wedge perimeter of the target starship. This is why laser-heads were developed, so that the warhead could detonate well outside the wedge of the target (30-50,000km compared to a wedge approx 100km across).

A wedge collision directly with sidewall (assuming the target had no wedge of its own) would go straight through the sidewall and cut the target in half. This would not be good for either ship as the catastrophic failure of the fusion bottles would effectively be a point-blank detonation of a multi-gigatonne bomb

I got the bit abut sidewalls stopping missile wedges from the armor essay in the anthology In Fire Forged. It explicitly says that the first anti ship missiles were wedge contact - flying through the broadside gap of the target's wedge to impact the hull with devastating effect. The first sidewalls were developed to eliminate that threat.

Only once wedge impact had become impossible were nukes added to anti ship missiles.

So it seems you need the wedges to basically touch to trigger the destructive interference. Merely flying between another wedge, a few dozen km away from it is apparently not enough to do so.