Grav Lance question

Given the short range and effect, dropping a Sidewall, couldn't a contact nuke drop a sidewall as well? Given a Missile speed a contact nuke bomb should be able to drop a sidewall as fast and further out than a Grav Lance, and do as much or more damage than an energy torpedo. Plus added sensor blocking, etc.... Such bombs / missiles can be carried by anything as small as a LAC. One could fit the nuke to a Viper CM with a 3.2Giga metre range. 48 second flight time and just pound a ship to scrap. Most ships would just ignore CM if they have a wedge and sidewalls up, until the nukes start going off.

"Contact nukes" are called such because they need to be very close to (one might say, "in contact with") the target's hull. A nuke detonating outside the sidewall will radiate most of its energy into empty space without affecting the target substantially (sure, there's going to be some momentary sensor degradation, but that's about it). The fact that nukes cannot penetrate sidewalls and require elaborate penetration aids should give you a hint as to why, even going as far back as OBS, contact nukes were considered an outdated and increasingly irrelevant part of the average Navy's arsenal.

Skimper, for once in your life, please read the books.

The E wrote:"Contact nukes" are called such because they need to be very close to (one might say, "in contact with") the target's hull. A nuke detonating outside the sidewall will radiate most of its energy into empty space without affecting the target substantially (sure, there's going to be some momentary sensor degradation, but that's about it). The fact that nukes cannot penetrate sidewalls and require elaborate penetration aids should give you a hint as to why, even going as far back as OBS, contact nukes were considered an outdated and increasingly irrelevant part of the average Navy's arsenal.

Skimper, for once in your life, please read the books.

In specific the armor essay in In Fire Forged covers all these questions in detail.

But the short version is:
Yes a nuke can burn out or overload a sudewall.
No it doesn't need to be in direct contact (see burn mode)
Yes its standoff range is even shorter than a grav lance
No your chances of getting a nuke that close anymore are almost nonexistent.

Jonathan_S wrote:

The E wrote:"Contact nukes" are called such because they need to be very close to (one might say, "in contact with") the target's hull. A nuke detonating outside the sidewall will radiate most of its energy into empty space without affecting the target substantially (sure, there's going to be some momentary sensor degradation, but that's about it). The fact that nukes cannot penetrate sidewalls and require elaborate penetration aids should give you a hint as to why, even going as far back as OBS, contact nukes were considered an outdated and increasingly irrelevant part of the average Navy's arsenal.

Skimper, for once in your life, please read the books.

In specific the armor essay in In Fire Forged covers all these questions in detail.

But the short version is:
Yes a nuke can burn out or overload a sudewall.
No it doesn't need to be in direct contact (see burn mode)
Yes its standoff range is even shorter than a grav lance
No your chances of getting a nuke that close anymore are almost nonexistent.

there is only one instance of a contact nuke being successful against a modern warship, when fearless went up against the sward of space. Honor was amazed that rafe was able to get a successful contact nuke in. It took 8 decoys and a set of very special circumstances for ONE conctat nuke to be successful in this not to be repeated million to one shot.