The real effects of a thermonuclear weapon

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dacis2

Rear Admiral
I heard that nukes are so powerful as the burn in air but in space there is no oxygen and thus the nuke cannot create a burning effect, of am i wrong?
 
Originally posted by dacis2
I heard that nukes are so powerful as the burn in air but in space there is no oxygen and thus the nuke cannot create a burning effect, of am i wrong?
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Nuclear weapons when detonated in an atmosphere create two destructive forces:
  1. A fission reaction which vaporizes nearby objects.
  2. A shockwave of such magnitude that it levels buildings thousands of yards away.[/list=1]In space, there would be no shockwave, since there would be no atmosphere to push around, but the damaging force of the fissioning atoms in the bomb would still exist. Any ships or stations caught in the blast would most likely cease to exist, and any bodies of rock or metal like asteroids would be signifcantly reduced in size.

    Bigass fucking kaboom, and no more problem.
 
IIRC air isnt capable of burning per se (self sustained confligration), you can simply heat it up to the point where the chemical composition changes, which you could call the same thing I guess... im not to familiar anymore with what happens but I know that if air burned like wood we'd be screwed.

The nuke in space would still "burn" through radiated energy... in fact since theres nothing to block it in space it would burn quite a bit more.
 
There would be no shockwave, which is where most of the damage caused by a nuke comes from but there would be several other negative effects, first off the initially large amounts of heat, which is the explosive force per se in space, but also the huge amounts of other forms of electromagnetic radiation, would create a much larger EMP than a nuke detonated in air
 
Well, the effects of a thermonuclear weapon are terrifying... I'm just happy nobody tried to use it on my country...

I've heard too that the use of a nuclear missile in the atmosphere can destroy all the electronic stuff around it... You're not dead (well, there are radiations too) but your PC is... actually you're a bit dead...

John
 
The temperature around the "explosion" would still dramaticaly be increased. So if a nuke detonated near a spaceship, its hull would probably melt (at least without shielding).
 
Most Wing weopons are not nuclear weapons, however. Particle cannons and Maceweapons being the exception. Heat and radiation seem to be a common effect of all there wepons, though.

Also, We do not know how powerful there weaponry is compared to our nukes. Remember the Kilrathi used dozens of 500-megaton fusion (fusion as opposed to a fission bomb) weapons in FA. That is quite a bit more powerful than even the most powerful modern nuke.
 
NoRemorse: A detonating nuke generates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The EMP shorts out all electronics. I remember reading that in the 50s and 60s the US built nuclear tipped surface to air missiles, which they hoped would stop incoming ballistic missiles by creating EMPs, which would short out the missiles. Since direct contact between missiles isn't required, the accuracy issue isn't a problem.

Bhaktadil: Lord knows I'm not a physicist, but a quick look through the Victory Streak's weapons section shows that quite a few weapons use some type of atomic particle to inflict damage. For example:
Meson blaster: utilizes subatomic particles, called mesons, that cause internal explosions and give off radiation.
Particle cannon: fires minute nuclear particles, yet inoperable in atmospheric conditions.
Plasma gun: uses electrically charged hydrogen molecules in a state of near-fusion.
Reaper cannon: delivers high-speed pulses of charged atomic particles.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like a lot of nuclear jargon/technology. And then there's the Dragon's fission cannons...
 
Some of those weapons aren't nuclear. Nuclear weapon refers to a weapon where the active component, the part that causes the most damage, is a nuclear reaction, either fussion or fission. This is what the nace has. Most WC guns use subatomic particles as projectiles. The fact that they fuse together of fise apart are irrelevent. These weapons are just futuristic decendents of modern guns. The radiation is due to quantum mechanical physics. The missles are generally antimater, which is something else entirely.
 
hmm, looking good :D

so why dont they use one of them instead of trying to make a fusion reactor?, bomb an ocean :D loads a steam, turns some turbines and lo! power :D

only kiddin ;)
 
I saw a very interesting documentary on Discovery on designing the H-bomb once. Apparently it produces much more radiation than a fission bomb of the same yield (and spreads it's effects even further).
That's also a common misconception about fusion reactors. They do in fact produce radiation, just no radioactive waste.
Cold fusion would not produce radiation, but I don't believe that's possible.
 
Fusion bombs produce radiation because they need a nuclear explosion (produced by a nested fisssion bomb) to detonate. Furthermore, fusion bombs do not use hydrogen, but deuterium and tritium which are isotopes of hydrogen. The last one being a radioactive element.

Five years ago, I did a talk on nuclear bombs. I you want to read them, I put the material I used a this time on my web site at : http://www.multimania.com/sadic/Nuke
Unfortunatly, after these years, some illustrations are missing. I advice you to read the file effets.htm which deals with the effects of nuclear explosion and first.htm wich explain how the first nuclear warheads were made. Then it deals on how fusion bombs are made. A lot of reading for those interested by the subject... It is very frightening too :confused:


BTW, the most powerful nuclear explosion on Earth occured in the 60s during a russian test. It was a 98 megaton fusion warhead (still far less than the 500 Mega Kitties have). Russian most powerfull were 2 Megaton, USA 1.2 Mega (i believe), and French 900 KiloT. To compare, Hiroshima was "only" 15KT. So I never read AS but it must have been a slaughter
:mad:

I precise, that despite the fact I am interested by the subject, I am not for the use of such weapons. But it is not the kind of subject this board is intended for...
 
Hey I have just read the link provided by, Loaf. That's very good ! I think you will find my materials a little dull after that...
 
Sadic, it was even worse than it sounds because the Kilrathi did not just use 500 megaton nukes (which would be bad enough), the warheads on these nukes were laced with Strontium-90 which turned the planets into redioactive wastelands. The Stronti was what did the real damage, the warheads were just the package used. The warheads were not particularly superior to their typical planet pounding weapons.
 
To clear up some confusion...

In Action Stations (AS) the Kilrathi use 60 KT fission bombs.

In Fleet Action (FA) the Kilrathi use 500 MT thermonuclear airbursts laced with Strontium 90.
 
The reason thermo nukes produce so much radiation is, as someone mentioned before, they are multistage. First, a "standard" fission reaction must occur to produce the energy required for fusion. What causes the most radiation though, is that designers throw in a 3rd stage. They suround the whole thing in Uranium 238 (I think). The fusion reaction and excessive radiation causes the 238, which is normally stable to begin fission.
So basically there are 3 types of nukes currently.
Fission
Fission-fusion
Fission-Fusion-Fission

This is a result of an old report I lost, butr remembered the basics of (i hope). It's been a few years though. Anyway, that's my .02. I also did lots of reports on the plague, so someone should start a thread on that too heh
 
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