A Side Affect of Planetary Bombardment

So far this has been a contained discussion about planetary bombardment using tamed Kews. What are the side effects of a stealthy MA missile from afar or a Spider ship striking a planet with a full up wedge? IOW, a true Eridani violation of a single missile should violate the entire population.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:It is David Weber who claimed that the impactor hit at both 30 km/second and 1/10 of 1% of the speed of light. I will admit that I didn't notice the 1 order of magnitude error (all my calculations were based on 30KM/sec).

Indeed, but he didn't tell us the speed at which the impeller accelerating the impactor cut off. It might have been the same 0.001c or it might have been 0.005c. If the latter, it decelerated 0.004c in 0.2s, or 0.02c/s. That's over 600,000 gravities (so not likely).

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:It is David Weber who claimed that the impactor hit at both 30 km/second and 1/10 of 1% of the speed of light. I will admit that I didn't notice the 1 order of magnitude error (all my calculations were based on 30KM/sec).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Indeed, but he didn't tell us the speed at which the impeller accelerating the impactor cut off. It might have been the same 0.001c or it might have been 0.005c. If the latter, it decelerated 0.004c in 0.2s, or 0.02c/s. That's over 600,000 gravities (so not likely).

Just above the text I found for the description of the Honorverse KEW in chapter 31 of Shadow of Freedom, is this statement:

She was still wondering two and a half seconds later when the kinetic projectile struck Lombroso Arms Tower at approximately thirty kilometers per second.

I do not understand why you wonder when the impeller drive shut off, since the two conflicting speeds are both at the point of impact.

cthia wrote:What are the side effects of a stealthy MA missile from afar or a Spider ship striking a planet with a full up wedge?

A spider drive ship does not have a wedge, not that this is relevant to your question.

tlb wrote:Just above the text I found for the description of the Honorverse KEW in chapter 31 of Shadow of Freedom, is this statement:

She was still wondering two and a half seconds later when the kinetic projectile struck Lombroso Arms Tower at approximately thirty kilometers per second.

I do not understand why you wonder when the impeller drive shut off, since the two conflicting speeds are both at the point of impact.

Ok, so this is a slight continuity error. It's either one tenth of a percent of light speed (300 km/s) or 30 km/s (one percent of one percent).

Since they were trying to dial it back to avoid collateral damage, it's probably the latter.

cthia wrote:So far this has been a contained discussion about planetary bombardment using tamed Kews. What are the side effects of a stealthy MA missile from afar or a Spider ship striking a planet with a full up wedge? IOW, a true Eridani violation of a single missile should violate the entire population.

When the first MDMs were around I did the math--a single missile strikes with about 10% of the energy of the dinosaur killer, although it's high velocity will make the boom somewhat less damaging than the equivalent asteroid--more of the energy will be spent on digging a crater.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:So far this has been a contained discussion about planetary bombardment using tamed Kews. What are the side effects of a stealthy MA missile from afar or a Spider ship striking a planet with a full up wedge? IOW, a true Eridani violation of a single missile should violate the entire population.

When the first MDMs were around I did the math--a single missile strikes with about 10% of the energy of the dinosaur killer, although it's high velocity will make the boom somewhat less damaging than the equivalent asteroid--more of the energy will be spent on digging a crater.

I would have expected a lot more energy than only 10% of the dinosaur killer because it would be traveling significantly faster. And I also think it would depend on where it hit. If it hits right on a major fault line it could wreak enormous havoc and cost lots of lives and damage to infrastructure. It could hit in the ocean and cause major tsunamis.

The fact that kews are used to take out strongholds like towers suggest they are designed to limit collateral damage, which means the energy is transferred downward. But then do kews have the convenience of being fitted with or without a warhead? A warhead that could be programmed to go off a certain distance above the target?

cthia wrote:The fact that kews are used to take out strongholds like towers suggest they are designed to limit collateral damage, which means the energy is transferred downward. But then do kews have the convenience of being fitted with or without a warhead? A warhead that could be programmed to go off a certain distance above the target?

By definition, something with a warhead is not a Kinetic Energy Weapon. I would guess no, because the KEW is available in various sizes and programmable speeds.

cthia wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:When the first MDMs were around I did the math--a single missile strikes with about 10% of the energy of the dinosaur killer, although it's high velocity will make the boom somewhat less damaging than the equivalent asteroid--more of the energy will be spent on digging a crater.

I would have expected a lot more energy than only 10% of the dinosaur killer because it would be traveling significantly faster. And I also think it would depend on where it hit. If it hits right on a major fault line it could wreak enormous havoc and cost lots of lives and damage to infrastructure. It could hit in the ocean and cause major tsunamis.

But look at the size difference between a missile and a 10-km asteroid.