Re: [increasingly OT] How much is a kT? (and some RG stuff)

Second try - sorry if this shows up twice:

Thanks for the kTon clarifications :-) The pure *metric* system is on
its way out in Europe, though - the SI system is currently "in", and it
doesn't use calories :-/

Kent Nordstrom wrote:

> 1kg projectiles going at 2x10^6 m/s (a bit less than 0.01c)
> would have 1kT of kinetic energy.  If 1" is a million km, it'd take
around 2
> minutes for a projectile to get to max range of 30".	Well, you're
only
> hitting on a "6" anyhow, 

But you're only hitting on a 2+ at range 0-6, when you *should* be
hitting on a D6 roll of  -100 or something like that. 

For a given targetting computer, number of slugs and slug velocity, the
hit probability depends on the distance to the target to the -4th power
(ie, if the distance to the target is doubled, your hit rate drops to
1/16th of what it used to be) and the target's thrust rating as the
-2nd power, so you'd only have 25% as high a chance to hit a thrust-4
ships as you would a thrust-2 one :-/

> Yet another side note:  you'd want the
> projectiles to be very precisely machined... at least massing very
close 
> to some standard amount.

Since we can manage that today - not cheaply, but we can - I don't
think that's a very big problem :-/

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry