High End Torpedo Firepower?

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Lucky
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High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by Lucky » Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:24 am

Franchise: Star Trek Series: The Next Generation Season: 01 Episode: 23 Title: Skin of Evil wrote: PICARD: I'm not taking you anywhere. 

(Armus screams with rage as Picard is beamed away)

Captain's log, stardate 41602.1. The shuttlecraft has been destroyed to prevent any possibility of Armus leaving the planet. Vagra Two will be declared off limits. But the damage has been done. One of the saddest duties I've ever had to perform is now ahead of me.
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x23/ ... hd_439.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x23/ ... hd_440.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x23/ ... hd_441.jpg
Franchise: Star Trek Series: Voyager Season: 05 Episode: 25 Title: Warhead wrote: SEVEN: I'm detecting no further technology on the planet surface. 


JANEWAY: Maybe the second device was destroyed when it crashed. Scan for metallic particulates consistent with our friend in Engineering. 


SEVEN: There are minute traces scattered across the northern continent. 


JANEWAY: Isolate. An impact crater. 


SEVEN: It spans a radius of two hundred kilometres. 


JANEWAY: And look at this. Heavy concentrations of radiogenic decay in the crater walls, and the fracture gradients are consistent with a highly focused explosion. 


SEVEN: Evidently we've discovered its function. 


JANEWAY: A weapon of mass destruction.
http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ad_094.jpg
Franchise: Star Trek Series: Deep Space Nine Season: 05 Episode: 01 Title: Apocalypse Rising wrote: DAMAR: Personally, I think we'd be better off launching an orbital assault on Gowron's command centre. A full spread of photon torpedoes would take care of him, the Klingon High Command and everyone else within a few hundred kilometres. 


ODO: You should ask Dukat for some shore leave. I think you've been in space too long. 


DAMAR: Why? Because I'm willing to spill a little Klingon blood to get the job done? 


O'BRIEN: Shelling Ty'Gokor won't get the job done. You'd be lucky to launch one torpedo before they shot you down. Besides, even a dozen won't penetrate the shielding around the command centre.
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ng_669.jpg

Mike DiCenso
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:10 pm

Are you asking if these examples you've given count as high-end torpedo firepower, or are you asking for more examples of such?
-Mike

Lucky
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by Lucky » Wed Aug 07, 2013 10:09 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:Are you asking if these examples you've given count as high-end torpedo firepower, or are you asking for more examples of such?
-Mike
Sorry, forgot to ask what I intended to ask.

Are these examples complementary as they seem to be to me?

Are there any as easily quantified examples that contradict these?

Are there any more examples that show similar level of firepower that are as easily quantified?

359
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by 359 » Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:07 pm

TNG: "Skin of Evil":

If you set the size of the planet to be similar to that of Earth (similar gravity) and find the radius of the fireball it comes out to about 245 km. If you plug in numbers to the stardestroyer.net nuclear effects calculator until the ground-contact airburst is about 245 km, you get a yield of about 2,321 Gt.


DS9: "Apocalypse Rising":

Assuming an effectively destroyed area of between 200 km and 900 km and six expended torpedoes in a sort of flower-shaped dispersal pattern gives between 90 km and 400 km destroyed per torpedo. Again using the nuclear effects calculator and plugging in numbers until air blast radius matches those numbers and averaging the results gets about 850 Gt yield per torpedo.


And as for VOY: "Warhead" I found a site with a database of explosions and a calculator, and I think either it is not accurate on that scale, or I used it incorrectly because I am getting a rather large 1.98*10^28 J necessary for the event. So I currently have no idea how to quantify this event.


For examples which are on a similar scale, depending on how large the asteroid in TNG: "The Pegasus" is you can get similar figures. If the asteroid is about 90 km on its longer axis and is about 50% solid using 50% vaporized 50% melted gets about 300 Gt per torpedo.

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Praeothmin
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by Praeothmin » Fri Aug 09, 2013 4:51 pm

We know the asteroid in "Pegasus" wasn't 90km wide, though, at best 10-12km...

359
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by 359 » Fri Aug 09, 2013 5:49 pm

How did you scale the asteroid? I am fairly sure my method was questionable at best, and done quite a while ago.

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Praeothmin
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by Praeothmin » Sat Aug 10, 2013 2:49 pm

I didn't, Mike and Oraghan I believe did so a while back...
I believe if you search for "Pegasus" and "size" you'll find the threads with the math and images... :)

359
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by 359 » Sat Aug 10, 2013 5:20 pm

I think I found it http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 7&start=24. My method was similar, instead I scaled it against the Romulan Warbird and found a flat outcropping with the correct shadow placement/angel near the bottom of the asteroid and used that to scale the entire thing. I believed that was mentioned in the thread as giving a greater result.

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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sun Aug 11, 2013 6:52 am

Is there any way that you can elaborate on that method?
-Mike

Lucky
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by Lucky » Tue Aug 13, 2013 4:50 am

359 wrote: And as for VOY: "Warhead" I found a site with a database of explosions and a calculator, and I think either it is not accurate on that scale, or I used it incorrectly because I am getting a rather large 1.98*10^28 J necessary for the event. So I currently have no idea how to quantify this event.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
More then 180 Km in diameter

359 wrote: For examples which are on a similar scale, depending on how large the asteroid in TNG: "The Pegasus" is you can get similar figures. If the asteroid is about 90 km on its longer axis and is about 50% solid using 50% vaporized 50% melted gets about 300 Gt per torpedo.
There are too many unknowns for my tastes.

What is the asteroid made of? It has absurdly powerful gravitational and magnetic anomalies that are more powerful then what you find on stars.

How many torpedos is most of the Enterprise-D's torpedos? The yield you end up with can vary absurdly depending on what most equals.

What constitutes destroyed in Riker's seemingly panicked mind?

359
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by 359 » Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:23 pm

Lucky wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
More then 180 Km in diameter
Interesting, the crater in the episode was stated to be more than twice the diameter of even that. I wonder how impact craters compare to blast craters, are they normally larger or smaller per unit energy? According to the calculator I found above the craters are similar, at least on a small scale. So the blast should be a couple times the energy of the Chicxulub impactor based on crater size.

359
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Re: High End Torpedo Firepower?

Post by 359 » Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:32 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:Is there any way that you can elaborate on that method?
I don't have my exact calculations on hand but here's the method.

Not the exact images I used, but very close:
Image

Image

Image

Using the first image, I decided the Warbird was traveling next to some 'lump' in the asteroid with a shadow crossing up to the right at roughly 45°.

Next in the second image I scaled the width of the Warbird to the height of the vertical edge.

Looking at the third image I found a lump with a 45° shadow near the bottom-left of the asteroid, and applied the scaling of the vertical edge to the lump. Scaling to the entire asteroid I got about 90 km, which is not to large to be a chunk of rock in space, but it is on the high end.

Then to be on the safe side I assumed it to only be 50% solid composed of rock.

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