Last Chancers: 13th Legion discussion & analysis thread
Time to deal with Connor's take on Gavin Thorpe's first book of the Last Chancers series.
The anti-ordnance guns, basically weapons meant to intercept torpedoes (30 to 100 meters long) and bombers, would be an absurd waste of energy if they were megaton worthy.Connor MacLeod wrote: PAge 133-134
This quote provides numerous individual details about ship weapons. I originally had the quote together, but I broke it up for easier reading/quoteing.The Navy may have some strange ideas about strategy and defence, but you hat to hand it to them, they know a hell of a lot about firepower. Their anti-ordnance defence turrets have weapons larger than those carried on Titans, their barrels over ten metres long, dozens of the point-defences studding the hull of a ship the size of a cruiser.
A cruiser can have "dozens" of point defense turrets studding the ship. Taken literally, this may suggest that point defenses can differ in size on some ships (in Warriors of Ultramar for example, a frigate has hundreds of antiship guns) or that some ships may have smaller poitn defense capability than others. Its also worth noting that in temrs of scale the point defense weapons are larger than titan weaposn (which suggests they are at least as powerful if not more so) this suggests at least high kiloton/low megaton range output for poitn defense weapons, and possibly higher (low gigaton perhaps)
PAge 133-134Plasma cannons are stated to be capable of incinerating "cities". This implies a single plasma cannon ought to generate a fireball capable of engulfing a largge 40K city. Given the scale of some cities (in the Ghosts novels, or Hive Cities like Necron umda nad Armaggeddon, or the 60 km diameter fortress later in the novel) we can safely conclude a yield on such weapons. going by the Nuclear explosions calculator a plasma blast could be well into the single or double digit gigaton range for a single city-vaporizing blast. This would be conservative, since an energy weapon will be less efficient fireball-wise than a nuke (at least several times, likelier more of an orde rof magnitdue difference). If we used the ADC and plugged in the city diameters, we also can get s[/b]ingle or double digit GT minimum for cratering.[/b]Their broadsides vary, sometimes they have huge plasma cannons capable of incinerating cities, other times its mass drivers that can pound metal and rock into oblivion.
Assuming a cruiser carries dozens if not hundreds of such guns (depending on source) a cruiser can easiyl be carrying single, double, or possibly even triple digit Teraton firepower per broadside per shot, depending on the exact numbers used.
Mass drivers implies that some projectile weapons are at least EM in nature (reinforcing the "railgun" references in BFG), and indicagint the Imperium does indeed have such technology at least on some scale.
Why such guns would even need to be in the low gigaton range, as suggested by Connor, makes little sense.
Megatons would already be over the top.
OK, these guns are supposed to be more powerful than those found on Titans, but just how powerful your average Titan is exactly?
On page 94 of the 4th edition Rulebook, we read: "The Titans of the Legio Gryphonicus, bipdeal god-machines with the firepower to level fortresses,...", while in Codex Imperialis, Titans are dsecribed as "massive humanoid-shaped weapons of destruction powered by fission reactors..."
Would there be a need for megaton firepower there, when the conditions of destructions (rate of fire, extent of damage, constitution of the target) are not clear?
A barrage of multi kiloton shots would surely level a city.
Then the broadsides, implied heavier pieces of artillery, are in the comfy gigaton range, so much that a full broadside would surely secure a teraton blast, if not two or three digits teraton levels of destruction?
Well...
Assuming "incinerating" has to be taken literally (you never know, it's not exactly what we'd call a deeply technical treatise on weapon capacities out from an engineer's book), Connor assumes that the destruction capacity is that of one a single piece, instead of the end result of a broadside salvo, and also assumes that it's just one salvo. He goes on calling his interpretation "conservative", which is worth the comedy, and if it wasn't enough, entertains the idea that city could easily refer to areas up to 60 km wide.
In Codex Imperialis (2nd edition), we're told that "many planets are little more than farming planets where most of the world's surface is given over to producing food." (P. 8.)
Most cities wouldn't be the size of are ought to be smallish then.
Coritanorum itself, destroyed by the Last Chancers, was 50 kilometers across. Even taking the text to the most literal edge possible, a ground contact fireball that wide is going to be produced by 7.7 gigatons of energy, as per the NWEC. Now that's for a nuke, not for an explosion induced by plasma cannons.
That said, if plasma cannons are upscaled weapon systems based on the infantry plasma weapons, since we're told in weapon descriptions that such plasma guns fire blobs of plasma that explode violently, there's clearly more blast effect to expect from such weapons than with lasers.
The ship in question was Justice of Terra, supposedly a cruiser.
About the city in question, we learn this:
It's particularly interesting how one understands "impervious to all but the most sustained and concentrated orbital bombardment".The storm seems to be passing, the thunder rumbling away to be replaced by the roar of distant artillery batteries.
We're sitting on a rocky hillock, about eight hundred metres past the current Imperial trenchline, as far as I can tell. A plain stretches out for a few kilometres in front of us, swarming with rebels. It seems to be a kind of staging area, the open ground buzzing with activity. In the distance I can just about make out a sally port of Coritanorum. Two gatehouses flank a big armoured portal dug into an outcrop of rock from the mountain into which most of the citadel is dug. It's that mountain that makes it so easy to defend, rendering it impervious to all but the most sustained and concentrated orbital bombardment. Who knows how deep its lowest levels go? The parts that are above ground are rings of concentric curtain walls, each metres thick and constructed of bonded plasteel and rockcrete, making it hard to damage with shells and energy weapons, their slanted shape designed to deflect attacks towards the dead ground between them. That open space is a killing ground too, left dear and smooth to give no cover for any foe fortunate enough to get over one of the walls. I can see why half a million guardsmen have thrown themselves against this bastion of defiance with no effect.
"All but as "nearly," or "all but" as "everything except one particular thing"?
No matter how you take it, it still takes a sustained bombardment to get that city down. Multi teratons would obviously prove more than enough to get rid of this place with even one single salvo, perhaps one single cannon; after all, Connor argues for a firepower range from one digit teraton to three of them for a broadside. He defends higher figures in other threads.
We don't even need to consider the deepest city level, since when the mountain will be dealt with, the city will be compromised anyway, and the text above clearly speaks of the city's integrity, not its caves.
If you use the ADC, and consider an asteroid of 10,000 meters, here are the following values for cratering energies:
Code: Select all
\ Crater |
\ depth | 5 km
Composition \ |
-------------------------|----------------
|
Hard-Granite | 180.9 MT
|
Deposit this energy here and there to get rid of the city over its whole area, and you're done. Notice that it would be absurd to defend higher values by claiming that one single spot would be struck all at once, especially during a sustained bombardment.
Generally, yields well above the kilotons would not suffice to provide such massive craters, as gravity would have to be taken into consideration, but luckily, the mountains don't need to be moved up. They can merely be pulverized and their debris moved sideways.
Note that I used a depth of 5 km for the city, which appears more than fair considering that the book isn't littered with notes about how deep things are or else, and 5 km for the mountain's height is more than fair as well.
It is a figure that gives an idea of the energy involved. Hitting the mountain on the slopes isn't as efficient as detonating a bomb inside, but at the same time, the mass of the mountain would be considerably smaller than that of an asteroid's half, considering that a mountain is an eroded cone, not a hemisphere.
Now, there could be more rock as well, so the figure could be greater, but still, notice that you'd need a sustained bombardment to surely destroy it.
The quick one would notice that a ship which broadsides would be worth of many gigatons, or even teratons, wouldn't require any sustained bombardment at all to destroy that city. Armour non withstanding since even low yield tactical warheads can put holes into the fortress' defense walls.
However, the description makes it clear that simply even damaging the citadel would be hard. It's rather clear that from the moment you've gouged at least a radius of 5 km of rock, up and down, anywhere in the city, you have clearly achieved the goal of seriously gnawing at it, and that it's just a question of a couple more of such shots to finish it off.
Again, it would appear that even achieving this initial step wouldn't be easy.
Still, assuming you really want to destroy the whole city, the question would be how many of such 180.9 MT explosions (more or less) would you need to level a 50 km wide city built somewhere in the mountains?
Do you even need to have those radii to overlap? That would be overkill, and considering that some parts of the city are exposed, and some other parts would be closer to the mountain's sides, those multi-megaton salvoes would surely provide more than enough energy to get rid of sizable chunk of the whole place.
Basically, a radius of 5 kilometers means a disc that's 10 km wide. So you need at least five of those discs, aligned and touching, to complete a 50 km long chain of such discs. That means one central disc, plus two on either sides.
See here.
In terms of rings around the first one, that's six of them, then twelve more for the second ring.
So that's 19 times the figure above. 3,437 megatons if you pick the cratering value, and 19 gigatons if you pick the fragmentation one.
If you really want to cover the gaps, put one more circle for each gap. That would be 24 more, so 43 instead of 19.
Rather surprisingly, this could be one of the lower estimations of Naval firepower, implying yields in the low megatons at best.
Considering that the tanks were thrown into the air, the explosions have to have occured beneath them, underground, so I suspect the torpedo warheads were bunker busters. They clearly had to have a penetration ability. While this will help explain how the tanks went flying, the fireballs obviously broke through the surface since they were 50 meters wide and visible, obviously.Connor MacLeod wrote: Page 213
- the battleship launches ten missiles/torpedoes (indicative of at least ten heavy missile/torpedo tubes.)
Page 214 -
Kage assumes the plasma torpedo detonations have incinerated the troops, although the tanks are intact (though getting tossed around badly.. thirty meters into the air.)
Page 214
- shelling bombardment lasts for about two minutes, battleship (Kage things) was "more than 100 kilometres up in the air"
Page 215
- the terrain between the Chancer's locations and the fortress has been torn up and demolished for an approximate 12 km diameter. There are "hundreds" of craters (at a rough guess.)
Page 216
- Kage estimates there were 10,000 troops and 100 tanks, and now there is "nothing" (evidently the tanks were thoroughly shattered, and the troops incinerated.) Shell holes are fifty meters in diameter. The troops WERE caught at the center of the fireball explosion of the plasma torpedoes and reduced to ash, though the tanks survived mostly intact (although burning.)
Its worth noting this probably qualifies as something of a "precision" bombardment by Imperium standards (contrasted with other examples, such as STorm of Iron -though its possible that there is a differencec in capability over timeframe - CSM's generally use Heresy-era gear, whereas the Imperium stuff will get (occasional) upgrades and refinements from the AdMech and such. And the methods used in "Storm of Iron" (Beacons) and used here (some sort of telemetry or target guidance beam that provided coordinates) isn't that much different.
Its also worth noting this gives us an indication of just how dramatically Imperial warship firepower can be scaled. We know from other examples that emgaton range bombardments are used to support ground combat, but this may possibly be less than that. Possibly sub-kiloton even (at least sustained firepower)
That said, a buried HE explosive or nuke is going to leave much larger craters than when detonated on the surface.
The blast wave resulting from the first main volley release a hot blast wave that hit the faces of men one kilometer away, but aside from being quite uncomfortable, they didn't suffer any injury.
Expecting very low kiloton shots at best wouldn't be surprising here.
Shells were more powerful, at least in their blast effects, literally snuffing the fires from the plasma torps.
There's a crazy Last Chancer who decided to stand outside of the trench, enjoying the blast almost shredding his cape. One last explosion ends 50 m away from them. The guy laughs. No injuries.
Shell holes were 50 meters across (and 6 meters deep), so we're, at the very best, looking for extremely low kilotons, but likely lower yields with, again, buried detonations. This would be explained by the shells' own momentum, as they were dropped by a ship hovering 100 meters above their heads.
Connor MacLeod wrote: Page 217
- the fotress is powered by three plasma reactors. Every system, defense screen, sited energy wepaon (including the defence lasers, presumably), as well as "many" of the major bombardment turrets, are linked into that power system.
Page- 224
- Rebel fortress has its own factories and manufactories, which have allowed it to fend off determined attack for years now. Its an indication of how self-reliant Imperium bases can be.
Page 225
- plasma reactors are a "self fuelling" process according to Kage, and once you start them up, you don't shut them down. This tends to suggest that they're not a conventinoal reactor (like a nuclear reactor), but rather something exotic (possibly tapping another sourcec of energy.. sort of like Naquadah reactors)
First, if we really want to be exact about the 120 km wide fireball thing, the indicator gives a value of 69 gigatons for the ground contact case, and 138 GT for an airburst.Connor MacLeod wrote: Page 226
Description of plasma reactors. This makes them sound vaguely fusion like, though as Kage notes, they're "self-fuelling" which a conventional reactor isn't. The "star" reference could pehaps refer to power output (although obviously here, the yield is fairly limited.. ie no petaton range outputs or "mass extinction" scale yields) A 120 km fireball would roughly be in the low triple digit gigatons range (say 100-200 gigatons)"A plasma reactor is, in essence, a miniature star captured inside graviometric and electromagnetic force walls. If you remove the Machine God's blessing from those shields, the star goes into a chain reaction, resulting ultimately in detonation. Three plasma reactors fuelling each other's chain reactions will create an explosion roughly sixty kilometres in every direction."
"Nothing but ash will be left," adds the Colonel. "And at the heart, not even the ash will survive."
Secondly, let's see what this self-fuelling property is all about.
Does it mean it's exotic? Does it have to? What would you could a ship equipped with a ramscoop? What would you call a power plant that exploits the movements of ocean tides? What would you call a source of energy that exploits solar rays?
More, what would you call a nuclear plant that either draws hydrogen through an automatized refinement process, or draws fuel for fission reactions by mean of mechanized assistance?
Oh you get it, a self-fuelling power generation system. Exotic? Not much, I'm afraid.
Need some idea? Let's take a look at Internet.
A Nuclear Materials Authority:
Patent for Process for producing synthesis gasBrendan McNamara wrote: Leabrook Computing, Bournemouth
SUMMARY
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has produced a Final Report on options for
handling of UK Stocks of Uranium and Plutonium which is a reprise of a long standing view that the
UK should not pursue any new nuclear build. This view is being swiftly abandoned in the USA by
federal and state governments as they prepare for a major new nuclear build. The Report is, of course,
part of the positioning of the NDA itself for a speedy sale into commercial ownership and so is hardly
an unbiased view.
The option to bury all the stocks as waste is described as ‘low risk … and the lowest cost
option.’ This is in fact the very worst option, denying use of all this fuel to ourselves and others. The
option to place all the materials in long term Storage ‘on the assumption that they may have a value in
future’ flatly ignores all the current successes in new nuclear technologies, the surge in Uranium
exploration, and the plans for large nuclear programmes in the USA, China, India, and Japan. The ‘Use
it Now’ option, as described, is quite premature as the only fissile materials are 100 tonnes of
Plutonium and the small amounts of U-235 remaining in the Depleted Uranium. The NDA correctly
calculates that this is only sufficient to run three or four PWRs for 60 years, and leaves the impression
that the Stocks are indeed of little value. However, the Plutonium stock alone is sufficient to start 20
Fast Reactors which would then be self fuelling from DU stocks for hundreds of years. The Report
dismisses such developments as having ‘significant downside risks’ and limits the Use models to 12
PWRs and 12 Fast Reactors, only 30% of UK electricity needs. Knowledgeable buyers of the NDA
will know that the sale includes ownership of this vastly undervalued asset.
The commercial spin and underlying anti-nuclear agenda in this Final Report make the case
for the NDA to be taken over now by a new body, the Nuclear Materials Authority, which will pursue
the very opposite of all their suggestions to instead extract the real value of these fuel stocks. This is
the beginning of a thousand year nuclear energy system.
The starting point is to build a safe and highly secure storage system for all nuclear materials.
Store for Use is much more demanding than anticipated by the NDA. All material must be assayed,
tagged, and continuously monitored for decay, leakage, water incursion, and other hazards of long term
storage. Radioactive materials must be stored by a fully robotic, self repairing (without human entry),
deposit and withdrawal system from transport caskets which dock with storage facilities, fuel
processing, and reactor plants, just like a space station supply system. This will be an integrated
Enclosed Radioactive Materials System (ERMS) and once in the system, materials never leave it. A
prime example of such technology is the robotic repair and maintenance system for the JET Fusion
Reactor at Culham.
Imported Uranium ores and depleted natural Uranium are lightly radioactive and may be
assayed, stored and monitored more simply as a reactor fuel feedstock inventory. Meticulous,
automated accounting for all materials is still required for these materials.
At least three reactor types will be used this century: (1) PWR workhorse using mined
Uranium and recovered Plutonium in MOX fuels. These will double our stocks of Uranium and
Plutonium by 2050. (2) High Temperature, Deep Burn thermal reactors using TRISO million year fuel
(GT-MHRs) to dispose of new and legacy PWR reactor waste. The packaging of fuel particles in tiny
Silicon Carbide coated spheres allows for 10 times the burn up of a PWR and thus the complete burn of
the long lived actinides. These are ready for final demonstration, well ahead of the Fast Reactors. (3)
Fast Breeders, like the General Electric S-PRISM, able to self fuel with the Plutonium they breed from
Depleted Uranium feedstocks. They may use metallic fuels and their fast neutrons will also burn all
higher actinides. Another important competitor on this time scale is the Molten Salt Thorium Breeder
Reactor which opens up another huge fuel supply.
And on and on...According to the present invention, there is also a key recovery of the separated H2 rich stream (the second stream produced during the latter separation), which is advantageously used as - at least a part of, preferably all of - the fuel for the furnace of one, or more, of the said synthesis gas generator(s) of step 1. Thus the process of the present invention provides a substantially pure hydrogen source as a fuel for providing the energy necessary to initiate and sustain the aforementioned synthesis gas generation reaction(s).
This key step of the present invention, not only further supports the aforementioned advantage of negating the overall CO2 emissions associated with the present invention (i.e. using H2 as the fuel to power the furnace), but it also leads to many more advantages, namely that the process is self-fuelling and therefore accrues numerous economic advantageous when compared to other processes in the field. Thus, the synthesis gas generation process in accordance with the present invention can be operated in such a manner so as to manufacture its own hydrogen fuel requirements. In this manner, the present invention minimizes or better eliminates any need for externally supplied hydrogen.
For the record, naqahdah generators (Stargate) are self fuelling only if you stock enough fuel for them to run for eons and beyond. Yes, I guess it's self fuelling, especially if you link them to refineries that would extract naqahdah from the crust of a planet and get high quality fuel from the raw ore (although the raw ore, under nuclear reactions, already offers considerable amounts of energy), but I don't see why Connor couldn't apply this principle then to the Imperial reactors. "Almost there" comes to my mind.
Thirdly, about the explosion. Three plasma cores containing the equivalent of a miniature sun each, as the force fields maintaining the equilibriums collapse, a chain reaction starts between all the three of them. It ends with a big fireball that's 120 km wide.
Connor says 100-200 gigatons.
Why so much? Picking the NWEC, the figure for a 120 km wide ground contact fireball is 69 gigatons, 137.5 gigatons for a fireball up in the air (which would be unlikely, considering that a fireball that's 120 km wide would have to start very far from the ground to be that wide, and at such altitudes, air pressure would be far inferior, requiring therefore less energy to expand).
So that's what happens when three reactors powering all of a fortress' systems overload, succumb to a chain reaction of epic proportions and explode. "An extreme way to win a war" according to a certain Striden.
Coritanorum is a city built within the mountains.
It is necessary to understand its structure to appreciate the final destruction.
From the descriptions, the idea is that it could be an armoured Minas Tirith sort of city, but with much more of the city actually found inside the mountains. Or at least what would stick out would be a series of armoured walls and perhaps armoured ground, with lower levels being the city's backbone, where the only main walkways are found, allowing travel from one circle to another.
It's also 50 km wide, so it could run under a large area of a mountain range, but it also has to have some of its edges close to hills and larger empty areas, somehow.
Then, there's still the question of what we understand by an explosion that's x kilometers wide. Explosions are defined as a fast increase of volume and release of energy. About all the parameters which can be used to measure an explosion, size is hardly the most logical one. You can, however, measure the range of its components, from fireball to blast, or even radiation burns, which are all forms of energy. Let's not count the expansion of clouds of dust and fragments, the denser they are, the less atmosphere will be able to stop them. If anything, and for the sake of simplicity, it shows that using the fireball as the subject of measurement is going to put those two digits gigatons as the high end.
I suggest we get some quotes, to understand what the city looks like, what it represents from the Navy's point of view, and how it got destroyed:
Clearly, they're talking about destroying the city in this particular case. It's deemed impossible. Either this means the Navy can't muster enough conventional firepower (aside from the exceptional weaponry for Exterminatus) to complete the task, or that it simply cannot park ships long enough for them to even stand a chance before the multi-citadel's ground cannons fend off any fleet... the second option bringing us back to the first one anyway, since a single lucky shot with high yields would end this once and for all.'Admiral Becks, your plan is totally unacceptable' the wisened warmaster said, smoothing the folds in his long black trench coat. 'It is impossible to reduce Coritanorum from orbit.'
'Nothing is impossible to destroy, Warmaster Menitus' the fleet admiral replied with a smug grin creasing the leathery skin of his hawk-like face. 'It may take a decade of bombardment, but we can annihilate that rebellious fortress and everyone in it.'
Assuming the Typhons have armoured a considerable amount of surface of the mountain the city's built in, then even nukes and lances would have to fire many times to actually get through anything.
This would actually help making sense of bunkers buried hundred of feet below rock and armour plating on the surface.
The city has no shields, so it can only count on anti-ordnance weapons and anti-capital ship ground-to-orbit batteries to fend off warships, cruisers and battlebarges alike (battlebarges are large warships and some of the toughest in the Imperial Navy).
Technically, this would put a full broadside in the low megatons tops. Anything superior and a fleet or even just a flotilla of warships would actually have no trouble leveling the whole region.
That said, this view of the situation may be extreme. After all, a warship remained parked 100 km above Corinatorum and launched tactical ordnance at the city, so approaching the city is clearly possible. At least, the defenses then suffered some lag, but apparently the fortress happens to have enough solid shielding, enough area to hit at once and enough long range gun clusters, to reply in short order.
A storm is mentioned, so it's possible that sensors on the ground also were disrupted. Also, it could also be a question of how long it has been since a warship last fired anything from orbit. Maybe all the Typhons needed was a reminder vaccine shot to know that next time, they should act sooner.
See quotation below for the ground-to-orbit retaliation part.
Then, of course, it becomes interesting to remember that the city is powered by three plasma reactors, and we roughly know how much energy these three reactors release when going critical, so clearly their output is inferior to that.
More or less tactical assault weapons. They clearly put holes in the walls, but that's not enough yet to do any noticeable damage to the fortress as a whole, which is logical.'You so sure it ain't a suicide run?' I say back to him, eyebrows raised. 'You seen the lights, flares heading up, to the west?' Nods of agreement. 'They ain't flares. They're landing barges evacuating this battlezone. There are twenty or thirty transports up there in orbit, waiting to pull out. Guess they've decided to wipe out everything from space - virus bombs, mass drivers and all the rest. Coritanorum is a lost cause now. The rebels are too well dug in. In the past eighteen months, there've been thirty-eight assaults and we haven't advanced one pace. They're pulling back and guess who's left to hold the front line...'
'But we're behind the front, so what're you doing back here?' Thin Lips points out.
There's a distant whine behind us, getting louder and louder. The recruits duck into shelter, but I know what's coming and take a peek over the trench to see the show. Suddenly, there's a howling roar directly overhead and a squadron of Marauders streak across the sky, Thunderbolt fighters spiralling around them in an escort pattern. While the others cower in stupidity, I see a line of fiery blossoms blooming over the enemy positions. Our own artillery has set up a counter-barrage and the incoming fire suddenly stops. Then the attack run of the Marauders hits, sending up a plume of smoke as their bombs detonate and the blinding pulses of lascannon smash through the enemy fortifications and explode their ammo dumps. The ground attack is over in an instant as the planes light their afterburners and scream off into the storm.
'Hey boys!' I call down to them. Take a look at this, you won't see another one for a while!'
The recruits timidly poke their heads out, and give me a quizzical look.
'Bombardment, air attack - next comes the orbital barrage' I tell them. 'I've seen it half a dozen times, standard Imperial battle dogma. Those damned rebels are in for some hot stuff tonight!'
Just as I finish speaking, the clouds are brilliantly lit up in one area and a moment later an immense ball of energy flashes towards Coritanorum. The fusion torpedo smashes into the citadel's armoured walls, smearing along the scarred and pockmarked metal like fiery oil. Several more salvoes rain down through the storm, some shells kicking up huge plumes of steam as they bury themselves in the mud before detonating, others causing rivulets of molten metal to pour down Coritanorum's walls like lava flows.
Then the rebels' anti-strike batteries open up, huge turrets swivel skywards and blasts of laser energy punch through the atmosphere. For almost a minute the return fusillade continues, dissipating the clouds above the fortress with the heat of their attack. The ship in orbit must have pulled out, as no more death comes spilling from the cloud cover.
Half a minute later a siren sounds along the whole trench. Rations Boy looks up, face suddenly pale and lip trembling. 'That's the standby order. Next one sounds the attack' he tells me.
This takes place in a context where a warship is providing cover and support I guess, so it's not there to destroy the city, but to allow departure of troops.
Still, the siege has been going on for years. 38 failed assaults in the last 18 months. Sometimes, artillery was used by all sides. To no avail.
There are armoured walls stretching into the hills. This open space area is considered part of the city.As I begin unfastening the tunic, Colonel Schaeffer turns me around so I'm looking at Coritanorum, the heart of the rebel army. Even before the traitors had turned against the Emperor, the stronghold had a reputation for being nigh-on impregnable. Wall upon wall stretch into the hills, gun ports blazing as the artillery barrages a point in the line a few kilometres west of us. Searchlights roam across the open ground before the fort, showing the rows of razorwire, the mass of plasma and frag minefields, the tank traps, death pits, snares and other weapons of defence. As I watch, a massive armoured gate opens and a column of four Leman Russ tanks spills from a drawbridge across the acid moat, heading south.
The geography there is a mix of mountains, hills and more or less flat no man's lands, ladden with craters, and some trenches built here and there, with two sides opposed by kilometers and also a couple kilometers from the city's walls.
Towards the end of the novel, we learn that the "third ring is similar to the second, terraces of factories interspersed with mazes of habpens."
We also learn, a bit earlier on, that there were four rings (at least).
The small infiltrated assault team was getting very close to one of the plasma reactors, when around the third ring.
Such a heavily defended place is not seen again within a radius of one month of warp travel. This is considerable, and clearly establishes that Coritanorum is not a standard, but actually one of the most formidable fortresses the Imperium has. Well, had.I understand that it isn't, that I know what the Colonel has in mind.
'You were serious when you said we're going into Coritanorum' I say slowly, making sure the other Last Chancers understand the statement.
'Of course I was serious, Kage' the Colonel answers brusquely. 'Why would I not be serious?'
'Well' puts in Linskrug, leaning forward, 'there is the small matter that Coritanorum is the most impregnable citadel in the sector, the most unassailable fortress for a month's warp travel in every direction.'
'No citadel is impregnable' the Colonel replies, radiating self-confidence and sincerity.
'The fact that five hundred thousand Imperial Guard, backed up by the Imperial Navy, haven't been able to take the place doesn't vex you?' blurts out Linskrug, highly perturbed by what the Colonel is proposing.
'We shall not be storming Coritanorum, that would be ridiculous' the Colonel tells us in an irritated voice. 'We shall be infiltrating the complex and rendering it inoperable from the inside.'
'Assuming you can get us inside - which is a hell of an assumption - there's about three million people living in that city' I say, brow knitted as I try to work out what the Colonel's whole plan is. 'We're bound to be discovered. Frag, I couldn't even hide among people on my own side, on my own.'
Extremely hard to capture, although not necessarily that hard to shell into oblivion, assuming one can bring a flotilla and get a lock before being shot down.
Other fortresses may come with Void shields, but being less torturous and complex in their structure, meaning they'd be harder to destroy with a fleet, but easier to infiltrate on the ground.
There we know why it's such a hassle to get into the city.I'm beginning to understand even more now about how impossible it would be to take Coritanorum by open attack. Even if a sizeable enough force could gain access, the layout of the lower levels is roughly circular, a series of four concentric rings according to Gudmanz. Each is only linked to the next by a single access tunnel, which are on opposite sides of each ring so that to get from one to the next you have to get around half the circumference of the ring. The builders even made the air ducts and power conduits circular, so there's no quick route through there either. It's taken us a day and a half just to get around the outer circle. We grabbed a few hours sleep in an empty barracks block during the morning, and it's about midday now, and we're in a small chamber leading off from the passageway that goes to the next security gate.
The part below takes place much later on, as the reactors are overloading and about to explode. We're told that one reactor overloading would also drag the two others into a chain reaction as well.
We know that "the parts that are above ground are rings of concentric curtain walls, each metres thick and constructed of bonded plasteel and rockcrete", yet even if parts of the rings could be sticking out from the rock in some places, globally the remaining Last Chancers spent all their time in the lower levels. They went through underground houses. Second and third rings were the factory areas. The third and innermost ring was small enough that as Kage was "in one of a line of linked bunkrooms, each about a dozen metres long, three-tiered beds lining the left wall, kit lockers on my right," he could "see into the next couple, but then the sharper curve of Coritanorum's innermost ring" put "the others out of sight."'Let's go!' I call out to Striden. As I strap myself in next to the Colonel, the engines flare into life, lifting us off the ground. I'm slammed back into the bench as Striden hits the thrusters onto full, the shuttle speeding from the dock like a bullet from a gun. We pass through a short tunnel, jarring against the wall occasionally under Striden's inexpert piloting, before screaming into the bright daylight, blinding after the glowstrips of the past few days. I look back and see Coritanorum stretched beneath me, built into the mountains almost fifty kilometres across.
A ball of orange begins to spread out behind us, a raging maelstrom of energy surrounded by flickering arcs of electricity. Two others erupt just after, forming a triangle until their blasts merge. The immense plasma ball expands rapidly, hurling stone and metal into the sky before incinerating it. For a moment I think I see a black fleck racing before the plasma storm, but it might be my imagination. Then again, there was another shuttle in the bay. Mountains topple under the blast and all I can think of is the pile of ash that'll be left. A pile of ash worth three and a half million lives because someone made a mistake. My thoughts are drawn back to my own survival as I see a howling gale hurling rock and dust towards us.
'Faster!' I bellow to Striden as the shockwave crashes through the air. The ground's being ripped up by the invisible force, rock splintering into fragments, the high walls exploding into millions of shards. With a final convulsive spasm the plasma engulfs everything. The light sears my eyes, the boom of the explosion reaches my ears just as the shuttle is lifted up bodily by the shockwave, hurled towards the clouds. The hull rattles deafeningly from debris impacts, the metal shrieking under the torment of the unnatural storm, bouncing us up and down in our seats. I hear Striden laughing in his high-pitched way from up front, but I'm more concerned with my heaving guts as we're spun and pitched and rolled around by the blast.
As it passes, and the passage begins to smooth, I hear this strange noise and turn to look at the Colonel.
He's laughing, a deep chuckle. He's sat there, one arm ending in a ragged stump, dishevelled and covered in the blood and guts of others, and he's laughing. He looks at me, his ice eyes glinting.
'How does it feel to be a hero, Kage?' he asks.
What we observe is that there wasn't much deflecting the three fireballs once they were out in the open, nothing to prevent them from merging, and that before they had eaten the whole city.
So clearly, there has to be parts of the city which stuck out, although it seems that the only way to move closer to its center requires to get down to the lower levels and use the single main hallways.
Also, the fact that there would be three underground explosions would help spread the damage. Note that calculators such as the ADC works from the premise of a single detonation, not three.
Considering that energy requirements scale up squarely with distance, the gigaton figures obtained earlier on could be higher than what the reactors really unleashed.
Note: at some point the author has Gudmanz say there are four concentric rings on the lower levels, yet characters keep talking of the third ring as the smaller and innermost one, and there's no other mention of a fourth ring. Could be a mistake on the author's part, or there's something more about the city's underground layout. I pick the inconsistency option as far as I'm concerned.
So, the conclusion being that the reactors' explosions were clearly far more than enough to destroy the city, and that chain reaction led to the destruction of a city part inside, part outside, with three spaced explosions.
Since this is obviously well above what the Navy could have achieved, it's rather clear that it could only hope to unleash a fraction of those gigatons of destruction.
First, the effects are not dissimilar. It depends where the bolts hit, and how much energy might have been wasted in blowing the limb off of the body.Connor MacLeod wrote: Page 241First - bolter rounds blow "fist sized" holes in people and blow off limbs, though Schaffer's pistol blows a guy's head apart. This suggests different kinds of ammo being used (or different qualities.)I fire the assault laser from the hip, spraying dozens of red energy bolts into the Typhons by the gateway, pitching men off their feet, scouring burn marks along the walls.
...
Loron and Lorii open up with their bolters, the explosive rounds detonating in a ripple of fiery blossoms, blowing fist-sized holes in the Typhon's chests and tearing off limbs. I see a Guardsman's head blown apart by a direct hit from the Colonel's bolt pistol.
...
Striden brings up his shotgun, the half-random blast shredding the remaining Guardsman, scattering a mist of blood across the passageway. And then, suddenly as it started, the fight is over. A few seconds of concentrated bloodshed and the job's done.
Second - we have a shotgun blast apparetnly tearing someone apart ("shredding them")
Secondly, should we really believe that a shotgun really teared someone apart? I mean, hello? Seriously? We must understand that a single shotgun blast cut someone into tiny little pieces?
Because, you know, that's what shredding means after all.
Gee.
Apart from a "tunic", "white trousers", a "blue jacket" and a "Guard helmet", I didn't notice the mention of any armoured vest or else.Connor MacLeod wrote: Page 242 -First: Another instancec of Kage's lasgun sight in operation.In the laser's sight, his head and shoulders are brought into sharp focus as he leands round the corner for another shot, and I squeeze the trigger gently. Half a dozen red bolts flash into his upper body, a couple of them punching straight through and dissipating further down the tunnel.
Second, we see that Kage fires and fires off "half a dozen" shots, which (again) is not five shots/sec unless we assume its approximate and he took a full second to pull the trigger. Otherwise, it suggests more like 6 shots per trigger pull (which could happen several times a second, and be consistent with the earlier "dozens of shots in a few seconds" rate of fire.)
Third another Guardsmen is hit by lasgun fire - several shots seem to overpenetrate and dissipate down the tunnel. Assuming a 2-3 cm diameter hole (roughly "finger sized" as established in v in this novel (see later), the short story in the Ghosts omnibus, and the first Dawn of War novel, and a 20-25 cm torso thickness. This yields an approximate flesh volume affected (well a tunnel vaporized along the path of the beam) of between 50 and 140 grams (.05 to .14 kg) As we know from several sources (most notably the 3rd edition codex, the Dawn of war novel, Ghostmaker and Eye of Terror novels) a lasgun beam will basically vaporize water along its path, and this would include human flesh. It takes 2.5 MJ per kg to vaporize the human water body content (roughly), so the energy output of the shots would be at least 120-350 kilojoules. This ignores the fact that the shots overpenetrated, as well as the fact that the trrooper was probably wearing body armor. And, of course, it ignores inefficiencies.
Only Imperial troopers and Arbitrators get a mention worth of armour plating, carapace, chestplate or else.
As for inefficiencies, I don't see how many there can be here. The laser is going to be the most efficient weapon to deliver EMR energy along a given path.
Then, regarding the energy left beyond the Typhon's body, since there may not be many incidences of bolts continuing on, one would think that this was fairly exceptional.
Some other commentaries:
There, some of the bolts didn't get through. It's possible that some bolts Kage fired went through the same hole previously opened by other bolts. Hell, it could also mean that it may take a las-bolt plus a portion of another one to get through a body entirely.Connor MacLeod wrote: Page 245
- Kage uses the (armoured?) body of a dead Typhon Guardsman as a shield against sustained (several seconds) lasgun fire from other guardsmen. No bolts penetrate, although they visibly shake the body and make Kage wince. Kage returns fire (one -handed) With the dead guardsman's rifle for five seconds. The body "after" the attack is described as being "now-ragged", and Kage has killed one Guardsman.
If one is allowed to wank things up continuously, why shouldn't I evoke the obvious lower end interpretation of this event?
Huh, because a man with no exceptional attribute whatsoever is supposed to be able to cope with the "muzzle" momentum of a weapon that sends a target flying six meters back?Connor MacLeod wrote: Page 266
- Schaeffer's bolt pistol sends a Typhon Guardsman thrown half a dozen meters through the air by a single impact. His (Schaeffer's) arm below the elbow is a charred, cauterized mess from a plasma blast. Cauterization of the entire arm would probably entail at least 2-3 Megajoules (2-3 kg for the arm, assuming 300C cauterization), likely twice that if the arm was vaporized/cremated (likely)
Given the ability to throw a man-sized mass a considerable distance (3x body height) the bolter round must pack considerable momentum. I think its safe to say that explosive effect is not relevant here, since it would blow apart (or put a large hole in) the target, as the analysis thread for bolter firepower indicates.
Yet all other events picked by Connor don't feature such an absurd Hollywood flying ragdoll syndrome.
Only the energy of an explosion would allow such physics, but of course the target would be turned into mince meat.
Way to go! The ship is caught in the blast. Period.Connor MacLeod wrote:
Page 268
- the Last Chancer's shuttle survives the detonation of the reactors (at least 60 km or so away, but less than 100-150 km or so..).. assuming a 120 km diameter fireball and a rough distance of 100 km distance (just at the edge of the atmosphere) the shuttle would probablly absorb at least several terajoules of enegy (if not several kilotons) assuming it was the size/mass of Eisenhorn's 80-meter gun-cutter (which is reasonable, given the size of Imperial space fighters.)
It could easily range beyond even the widespread destruction radius, which would be 285.4 kilometers for 69 GT (necessary for a 60 km radius ground fireball).
69 GT is 288.696 e18 J.
At 60 km, the surface area of a sphere is 4.5239 e10 m². Intensity: 6,381 e6 J/m².
At 100 km, the surface area of a sphere is 1.2566 e11 m². Intensity: 2,297 e6 J/m².
At 200 km, the surface area of a sphere is 5.0265 e11 m². Intensity: 574 e6 J/m².
At 300 km, the surface area of a sphere is 1.1310 e12 m². etc.
As for the shuttle's size:
Huh, you'd think that two 80 meters long shuttles would provide more than enough spare space for 20 men or so. And a ladder? To get inside the shuttles? That doesn't sound like an effective way to embark into a typical troop transport craft.The sound of nearby engines rumbling into life draws my attention back into the real world and I start stumbling towards the shuttle pad. About a hundred metres further down the corridor I hear the whine of jets to my right. Following the noise, I come across a huge set of double doors and stumble through them. Inside are twenty or so Typhons, fighting with each other as they try to scramble up an access ladder to one of the two shuttles still left in the hangar. Those at the top are trying to push the others back so they can open the hatch. The rest of the vast open space is filled with scattered barrels and crates, hastily tossed out of cargo holds to make room, by the looks of it. The air shimmers from the heat haze and smoke left by the departed shuttles. No one is paying me any attention whatsoever.
...
I plunge through the hatchway and head into the cockpit.