Re: [GZG] Gzg-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 24

Is not a lot of the "force" in an explosion the rapid expansion of the 
gasses released from the chemical reaction.  I understand not having a
lot 
of atmo to compress to get more effect, but HE does "carry" some of it
with 
it

Michael Brown
NOT a Phyicsit
mwsaber6@msn.com

--------------------------------------------------
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 8:34 PM
To: <gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Gzg-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 24

> On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 11:30 PM, 
<gzg-l-request@mail.csua.berkeley.edu> 
> wrote:
>
>> This sort of reminds me of optional rules I've thought of for Full
Thrust 
>> where magazine or fighter bay hits (i.e. threshold failures) should 
>> perhaps be just a little bit more painful than the loss of a system. 
>> These have been just about every naval captain's worst nightmare for 
>> centuries, whether it was the powder rooms in sailing warships, or
the 
>> spectacular magazine and/or ordnance hits that destroyed several
British 
>> battlecruisers at Jutland, the Hood in the Denmark Strait, the
Arizona at 
>> Pearl Harbor, the Yamato at Okinawa, or most of the Japanese carrier 
>> fleet with a whole air wing's worth of ordnance sitting on or near
its 
>> flight decks at Midway.  Throw that together with maybe a little more

>> spectacular results when a ship is destroyed (e.g. maybe a power core

>> explosion should actually hurt other ships nearby and/or fighter 
>> screens), and maybe that'd be a more effective deterrent to
overloading 
>> on missiles, fighters, or bunched up ship formations than trying to
tweak
>>  the point defense rules.
>
> How effectively do explosions propagate in a vacuum?
>
> I don't have a PhD in the subject, but the practical experience I have
> with explosives suggests that past the immediate vicinity of the
> explosives (immediate vicinity being roughly relative to the square
> root of the quantity of explosives), much of the damage is done by
> shock wave -- which energy transmitted by compression of air.  No air,
> no shock wave.  So explosions would be really destructive on that
> ship, but I think less so further away.
>
> Especially given the distances commonly assumed in space combat -- if
> an inch is even 100 km, there would have to be some pretty 'earth
> shattering kabooms' to have even a tenth of an inch in radius.
>
> John
> -- 
> "Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
> and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
> --Vita Aureliani
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