TNE: Antimatter Missiles

A thread of 2 messages, 12 June 1994 to 13 June 1994, in the order they were sent.

#7972 TNE: Antimatter Missiles

[unnamed sender] · 12 June 1994

In response to Roger Myhre's discussion of antimatter missiles:

Warheads for antimatter missiles wouldn't be all that small.  If you wanted a
non-impact warhead that could actually damage a ship, it would have to be
pretty large.  assuming we can get a missile within 100 km of the target, this
is 10e7 cm.  the energy per cm^2 is about 10e-15 of the blast energy at this
range.  To do one point of damage to a square cm, going by the FF&S guideline
that the effective range of a laser is where the energy is distributed over a
square cm, we need to deliver about a megajoule to a square cm, requiring on
the order of a megaton (1 megaton = 4.2e15 Joules).  This requires about 50
grams of antimatter, and it still has no hope of penetrating armor.  it could
damage surface features, but the energy would probably be too diffuse to do
much.  if a spot on a surface feature can withstand a 1 MJ laser easily, all a
1 megaton blast is going to do is lightly toast the outside of the ship.  :)

Either a much bigger warhead is needed, or the missile needs to get closer.
The consensus seems to be that impact missiles would be shot down easily.
Signifcant damage might be done by a warhead in the tens or hundreds of
megatons, but that would require more than a kg of antimatter.  manufacturing
the stuff isn't exactly easy...  Well the warhead is pretty small, if you want
to waste all that antimatter in a marginal weapon.

Ted Baltz
[email removed]

#7987 Re: TNE: Antimatter Missiles

Eric Edward Moore · 13 June 1994 · reply to #7972

Well you should probably assume that some of the damage resistance of
a surface feature or armor is its ability to conduct heat away from
the place where the laser is hitting so the temperature doesn't get
too high.  This is not of particularly too much help when half the
hull is recieving energy at the same time.

1MJ/cm^2 is a pretty high energy density.  Enough in fact, to melt 34
cm of iron.  Even assuming a really polished surface and better
properties than Iron, this is going to really screw up your average
antenna.  And a 10MT antimatter warhead is a lot cheaper I'm sure than
some ship designed to clean off the antennas from an enemy ship.
Heck, fusion weapons that size aren't too hard or expensive to build.
Certainly a 10MT weapon is going to be unfriendly.  I doubt your
antenna can take the energy involved with vaporizing 3.4m of iron.  I
don't have TNE but I doubt that the antenna arrays weigh enough that
you can claim that they have enough mass/thickness to withstand that,
and it strikes me as unlikely that the entire hull of the ship is
thermally superconducting.

Exploding missiles also have the advantage that it's easier to hit
with them than with det lasers.  (Oh, look, the missile is within
100km, time to detonate!)

And if the antennae can withstand this sort of treatment, that brings
up all sorts of interesting things you can do with the technology :-)

        -Love, Kisses, and a Neutron Bomb
                -Eric the Finn