Re: Damage Control and CVs

Alan E and Carmel J Brain wrote:

> Ryan M Gill wrote:
>
> > Hasn't Forrest Fire^h^h^h^h^h Forestal been ablize twice?
>
> The only thing that I find amazing is the relative scarcity of
disasters
> aboard CVs.
>
> Consider this: you're packing several thousand tonnes of high
> explosives,  and more thousand tonnes of highly inflammable jetfuel in
a
> big steel box. Add in either more thousand tonnes of fuel oil, or a
> number of really small nuclear reactors in the same box. Then, instead
> of having "no flames within 100m", have really hot aircraft components
> and large jets of afterburner flame on top. Oh yes, and controlled
> crashes of multi-tonne aircraft coming it at 200 kph or more. For
spice,
> add the near-certainty of at least one aircraft crashing into it every
> year, sometimes many more. THEN instead of having it on a nice, stable
> patch of ground, put it at sea where the bombs etc can roll around and
> fuel slosh everywhere. Add a small chance of a major collision (eg the
> one with USS Belknap). Finally, make it crewed not by a handful of
> picked experts and extensive "fail-safe" automation, but 6000 or so
> crew, some sick, some tired, some just plain incompetent, some not
> giving a flying whatever, and some who "haven't got the word.".

Some of those 6000+ crew have the job to make sure the guys don't do
something stupid.  One of my cousins was on carrier that collied with
the
Belknap.  It didn't distrub his sleep but the general quaters alarm
after it
happened did...  To help visualize what happened, take a mass 80 cruiser
and
ram a mass 750 super-uper-duper-dreadnought.  Belknapps displace about
8000
tons, Forestals displace 75,000 tons...

>
>
> It was the latter that caused the many problems with CV catastrophes
in
> the late 60s. Morale was in the toilet, and drug use rife.
>
> In any event, I'd say that USN CVs are some of the toughest ships to
> take out by any means. Simply because if they weren't, there'd be far
> fewer of them still afloat after all these years of "peacetime"
hazards.
> It says a lot for the USN's standards of professionalism too.

Yes, size does matter.	As does professionalism, both by the crews and
the
desingers and builders.  3+0 years of carrier opperations help a lot
too.

>
>
> Which leads us to things vaguely On Topic (!!). When we have several
> kilotonnes of spacecraft capable of travelling at megametre/sec speeds
> relative to planets, what are the peacetime safety implications?
What's
> the "safe distance" for orbit, so if the reactor blows, the nearby
> inhabited planet remains so. (still inhabited, that is)?

Depends on how big of an explosion and how low was the orbit.  Too many
variables to really pin.  Unless it was a huge explosion (80+) megatons,
there would probably be only low fallout due to the lack material
(compared
to a ground burst), and a hemispheric EMP burst.  Not enough to really
phase
a planet.  Planets are huge compared to space craft.  I charted out most
of
our solar system and scaled it for the accepted Full Thrust scale.  It
is
posted on Laserlights web page.  The only real effect would be from EMP.
 A
minor increase in background radiation won't have much of an effect.

This gives me a great idea.  How about EMP bombing enemy planets to
neutralize their technology.  Iron age isn't very effective against
starships.  It would require only about 8 to 12 nukes to neutralize an
Earth
type planet.  This would allow a very effective "planet hopping"
campaign.
You could even use designer nukes optimized for EMP (And yes, such
things do
exist.	Neutron bombs are one type of designer nuke optimized for
neutron
radiation.)  to minimize the use of fissionables and the unwanted
effects of
general purpose nukes...

IAS