Comment on Would Nuclear Weapons be as destructive in ship to ship space combat, as they are on the ground in an atmosphere?

• Hereforpron2@lemmynsfw.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The shock wave needs a medium (air) to travel through. So if the bomb was touching a ship, it would certainly transfer kinetic energy, but if there was any space (not air) between them, there is still no shockwave for the ship to feel.

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  • FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    A railgun would be far more effective for transfering kinetic energy and it’s munitions would likely be cheaper

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    • awwwyissss@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How about a railgun with a nuclear payload? Breach the hull and the nuke would work again

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      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        With a hull breach the atmosphere within leaks out and I doubt there would be enough oxygen in the ship to really help with detonation. Maybe some self sealing projectile with a nuclear tip but really any traditional explosive would work fine in that case as the ship would act as a sealed canister

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  • zephr_c@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    A shockwave can travel along the solid structure itself as the medium. Any ship that is actually directly hit would be vaporized. It’s just the whole point of nuke is not needing a direct hit. I doubt any realistic space vessel with anything even remotely similar to plausible near future technology could survive a direct hit from even a moderately sized conventional explosive.

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    • awwwyissss@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah, it takes incredible amounts of energy just to move unarmored ships slowly around our own solar system.

      Seems like adding armor would make them so heavy and slow that they wouldn’t be worth using.

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      • rambaroo@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yeah that’s why any reasonable hard sci-fi has to rely on highly advanced fusion or speculative energy technologies

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• piecat@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That would have to be a big ship to feel a shock wave without being consumed by the ball of plasma

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  • c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Where would that come from? According to a posted article in this thread thermal energy can’t transfer either unless by direct connection and radiation would be the biggest factor, with increasing size compared to on the surface due to lack of atmosphere “attenuating” the distance it travels.

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    • piecat@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If we’re talking about a direct hit, the radiation is going to be substantial

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      • c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        True, but it’s not a ball of plasma.

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