Brian's Snowspeeders Video

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Lucky
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Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Lucky » Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:23 am

Snowspeeders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1VNltm3hTU


I think Brian may be underestimating the size of the snowspeeder's canopy, but that only makes the guns even more oversized compared to every other ship which he seems to agree with.


I may have been misunderstanding something, but it seemed like Brian seemed to think that the size of the gun has some relationship with firepower?


4:40ish Claim that because snow speeders were used in place of the X-Wings, they must be on par with X-Wings when it comes to firepower, but the problem is that Hoth's cold was doing a number on their equipment, and only the Snowspeeders were optimized for the cold.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by 2046 » Wed Apr 01, 2015 9:41 pm

Brian is attempting to distance the AT-AT from the AT-ST insofar as combat performance over and above whatever can be said as a result of size. That is to say, he's trying to suggest the AT-ST is a tin can compared to the impenetrable AT-AT. That way, no matter what is said about the failings of the AT-ST as seen in RotJ and Rebels, he can fall back to the AT-AT and claim ubertech victory.

This is a messy position for him to take. I don't think he knows just how messy it is. This is basically like suggesting that tank divisions could include smaller inflatable tanks, and saying that with a straight face.

It's not just that folks can ask "hey, why send them alongside at all?" . . . to that he need merely argue that the Empire doesn't have to care, or that their small size means they don't have to be built to take hits from big guns, et cetera.

In any case . . .

While I would certainly hesitate to say there is *zero* relationship between weapon size and firepower, the simple fact is that there is no indication that is the only variable or that it is a linear relationship.

Suppose, for argument's sake, that the best way to have a cold-adapted modern handgun was to fire a larger but slower (and thus less powerful) round. In such a case, a group commonly carrying .22 Magnum pistols might carry something looking like a Desert Eagle instead. It doesn't mean it is any more powerful ... indeed, it may be less so, and a worse penetrator, besides ... but it means it is better for that environment.

The fact that these are called snowspeeders suggests these are special cold-weather craft to begin with, if even inadequately so given the mention of adaptation. The size of its guns could be due to any number of factors, including:

1. More firepower (Brian's argument)

2. Better for cold-weather ops
a. perhaps the guns simply appear large due to barrel shrouds and heating elements to insulate the guns against the cold ... this may explain some of the ungainly shapes of the rest of the craft, as well.
b. perhaps bigger barrels affording less barrel heating to avoid thermal fracture
c. perhaps allowing longer sustained beams for snow-melting or terraforming
d. perhaps these guns are designed for better flak bursting action for wider scale snow melting ... it's just that these flak bursts don't do much against walker windshields, as per the script.

3. Scrounged parts
a. possibly being savagely underpowered here, the plasma-weapon equivalent of shooting a .22 Short out of a Desert Eagle .50.
b. possibly being very old
c. possibly being very low-tech compared to standard, such as being weapons from some backwards cold-world alien race

It could also be some combination of those.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 02, 2015 8:23 pm

Well a parallel could be drawn with the early generation craptastic "mini" tanks used by Italians in Africa in WWII. Especially if you were to compare them to the larger top notch tanks that came later.
Then the difference of size between an AT-ST and an AT-AT is quite massive!
We know that an AT-ST (the Endor variant) can tank something like three salvos from the frontal dual cannons of another AT-ST in its aft-plate before blowing up.
We also see what these cannons can do to trees that are not so impressive in size (and when dialed up). I mean, they offer a much, much higher rate of fire than a Challenger tank would get from its main tube, sure, and that for much smaller cannons and small ammo "boxes", but then, they don't offer the same punch either. These walkers are clearly anti-infantry. They seem to fire grenade level firepower, sometimes a bit above, sometimes a bit less.
Snowspeeders don't have an impressive firepower.

Their cannons are quite bigger than those found on an AT-ST:

Image Image

But the highest amount of damage I could find was during Luke's plunge between the legs on a AT-AT:

Image

Above: the white flare represents the fireball at its greatest size, due to an impact of at least one laser bolt.

This might the whitish flame of an explosion that might be able to engulf a man entirely. Compare with the thickness of the circular sole an AT-AT's foot to know for sure, while remembering that the shot is at a downward angle.

Again, what do you say? Grenade level of firepower? I couldn't know. I remember once being much more generous with interpreting that shot but I rapidly revised my appreciation of the displayed power there. There's no massive plume of vaporized water left either, it's just a big flash.

If we compare the size of the cannon tubes, and remember that the speeders gave headaches to technicians to retrofit for this cold environment (something to do with the massive radiators and we do see that the cannons go straight through the protruding pieces which had no front panels and revealing thinner radiator plates), and that the pilots seemed disappointed that their guns couldn't even dent the armour, perhaps we might infer that they were far from working at their peak?

Now, knowing it's a Brian Productions video, I'm humbly going to pass. ;)

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 02, 2015 8:51 pm

Lucky wrote:I may have been misunderstanding something, but it seemed like Brian seemed to think that the size of the gun has some relationship with firepower?
For equal levels of tech, it should definitely provide an advantage. Greater forces fields for accuracy and therefore range, perhaps a greater bottling capacity (for greater range and perhaps more bottled energy per bolt, so that covers also the greater firepower part of a larger cannon), perhaps, I dunno, a better cooling?
But the vehicles didn't seem to be suited for cold environments at all. Yet relied on radiators that needed to be exposed, so it's possible they froze way too fast and thermal stress made the parts break.
Yep, those speeders aren't really that impressive, at least not in that kind of environment.
4:40ish Claim that because snow speeders were used in place of the X-Wings, they must be on par with X-Wings when it comes to firepower, but the problem is that Hoth's cold was doing a number on their equipment, and only the Snowspeeders were optimized for the cold.
I'd wager that Echo Base considered the protection of convoys and therefore the conservation of their fighters escorts for the right time, including their proper preparation for take off, to be more important. Then, all other forces on the ground, unfortunately, would only be sent to buy time, quite in a desperate way.
Logical, in way, since there was no reason to waste more resources on the ground because in the best case scenario, they were going for a siege. In other words, probably screwed anyway. So they had to flee, and make sacrifices.
One of those hard decisions for General Rieekan and his comrades...

It is, honestly, one of the best movie battles ever, especially on an emotional standpoint.
You can imagine the emotional roller coaster for the Rebels, starting with hopes, even if delusional to some extent, down to massive defeat, loss and humiliation.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Darth Spock » Sat Apr 18, 2015 3:57 am

2046 wrote:This is basically like suggesting that tank divisions could include smaller inflatable tanks, and saying that with a straight face.
Hey, don't underestimate the power of inflatable tanks dude!

Image

Seriously though, I don't think that going strictly by gun size is a sound approach either, not to mention, why use the speeder picture with the blacked out canopy? That throws the whole thing off right off the bat, better to have matched up the helmet of the pilots in some of the various craft.
In the end though, it does make sense that the X-wings wouldn't have cannons many orders of magnitude higher than the speeders, or the rebels would have been idiots not to have the star fighters make a strafing run against the At-Ats, if they could have obviously done better. The big question then, is are we supposed to assume the snow speeders are sporting ICS grade kiloton cannons, or is it evidence that the star fighters that are sporting lesser guns?

The only flaw I see in that line of thought, is the idea of AT-ATs shrugging off proton torpedoes. I suppose, given the indications that Echo Base had just recently become fully operational, and references to torpedoes being rare and valuable weapons to the rebels, that they either didn't have any, or not enough to make a difference.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Apr 20, 2015 9:38 pm

Darth Spock wrote: In the end though, it does make sense that the X-wings wouldn't have cannons many orders of magnitude higher than the speeders, or the rebels would have been idiots not to have the star fighters make a strafing run against the At-Ats, if they could have obviously done better.
That's an usual claim but I've grown reluctant to it, as it largely denies the reality of the situation and the harsh choices that needed to be made.

Would you throw X-wings at those large, armoured and heavily armed machines, with the risk of losing some of those precious ships, all at the same delaying your convoys because you've actually reduced their escort capacity, that despite the fact that you know from the first minute that you must evacuate everything *right now*?
Rieekan probably knew there was a large risk that he was sending some men to their deaths, just to buy any time that could be bought so as to be sure to complete as much of the evacuation as possible, that is, the most important material assets.
The big question then, is are we supposed to assume the snow speeders are sporting ICS grade kiloton cannons, or is it evidence that the star fighters that are sporting lesser guns?
We don't have to ask ourselves such questions anymore.
The only flaw I see in that line of thought, is the idea of AT-ATs shrugging off proton torpedoes. I suppose, given the indications that Echo Base had just recently become fully operational, and references to torpedoes being rare and valuable weapons to the rebels, that they either didn't have any, or not enough to make a difference.
It's a strategical given that torpedoes wouldn't be used on the walkers. At best, they'd be kept for whatever would be met in orbit.
The torps are so rare in fact that the Empire itself seldom uses them outside of what appears to be very specialized ships (TIE-bombers, and even that is speculative cause the movies never have shown them fire any missile per se but shoot glowing stuff downward).

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Darth Spock » Tue Apr 21, 2015 4:18 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote: That's an usual claim but I've grown reluctant to it, as it largely denies the reality of the situation and the harsh choices that needed to be made.

Would you throw X-wings at those large, armoured and heavily armed machines, with the risk of losing some of those precious ships, all at the same delaying your convoys because you've actually reduced their escort capacity, that despite the fact that you know from the first minute that you must evacuate everything *right now*?
Rieekan probably knew there was a large risk that he was sending some men to their deaths, just to buy any time that could be bought so as to be sure to complete as much of the evacuation as possible, that is, the most important material assets.
True, but Luke hoofing it back to his waiting X-wing from leading the charge against the AT-ATs certainly wasn't the result of putting the craft to better use, and only 1 transport and 2 X-wings were being launched at a time. I can see they wouldn't want to risk more valuable fighters in place of speeders they couldn't take anyway, but this still plays to the idea that they would likely have done no better against the walkers. If the X-wings were packing 10x or more firepower than the speeders, and could have smacked down the AT-ATs, the rebels could have better organized their retreat under the shield.

The idea that they weren't optimized for the environment may have been a factor, but given the strains the craft are designed to endure in space, and the fact that the speeders had already been adapted, and absolutely everything else the rebels and Imperials had planet side seemed to work fine, I find it hard to swallow the idea that the rebel techs just didn't get around to adapting the star fighters if they could have made a considerable impact in battle.

The only other factor I can think of, was that Luke, and the rest of Rogue Squadron didn't seem to expect their guns to be so ineffectual. Either they have never battled AT-ATs before, or these were a new model. Even so, the only rationale I can find for the X-wings packing much more firepower, is to facilitate the idea that in space, everything is nuclear grade, but ground weapons are smaller "because." That works to a point, but I don't think cranking the X-wings guns to max would suddenly melt everyones face off, so that they couldn't risk it.
The big question then, is are we supposed to assume the snow speeders are sporting ICS grade kiloton cannons, or is it evidence that the star fighters that are sporting lesser guns?
We don't have to ask ourselves such questions anymore.
Quite, although I imagine that was the original idea.
It's a strategical given that torpedoes wouldn't be used on the walkers. At best, they'd be kept for whatever would be met in orbit.
The torps are so rare in fact that the Empire itself seldom uses them outside of what appears to be very specialized ships (TIE-bombers, and even that is speculative cause the movies never have shown them fire any missile per se but shoot glowing stuff downward).
I'll buy that.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Apr 21, 2015 10:42 pm

Darth Spock wrote:True, but Luke hoofing it back to his waiting X-wing from leading the charge against the AT-ATs certainly wasn't the result of putting the craft to better use, and only 1 transport and 2 X-wings were being launched at a time.
Luke would have wanted his ship ready to depart at any moment. He probably thought, or hoped at least, that the speeders could deal damage to the walkers. Otherwise they'd have attempted something different from the beginning.
I can see they wouldn't want to risk more valuable fighters in place of speeders they couldn't take anyway, but this still plays to the idea that they would likely have done no better against the walkers. If the X-wings were packing 10x or more firepower than the speeders, and could have smacked down the AT-ATs, the rebels could have better organized their retreat under the shield.
I don't think so. By the very moment they know they've been spotted, the reaction is almost automatic: leave now.
They were not going to try their chance in some kind of siege with limited supplies against an Empire that would just bring more and more assets, perhaps stay out of range of the ion cannon and launch ground forces on and on.
The Rebels could never, ever win that. The shield is permeable at ground level, so they would have been screwed. The shield and cannon were just tools to buy time and simply not get pounded the moment the Empire would be above them.

The situation was dramatically unfair but it seems Rebel HQ took the best decision.
The idea that they weren't optimized for the environment may have been a factor, but given the strains the craft are designed to endure in space, and the fact that the speeders had already been adapted, and absolutely everything else the rebels and Imperials had planet side seemed to work fine, I find it hard to swallow the idea that the rebel techs just didn't get around to adapting the star fighters if they could have made a considerable impact in battle.
Without knowing where those speeders come from, at least we can infer that space fighters are versatile enough to enter atmosphere and work in space, which also require more capacity to withstand dramatic thermal and mechanical stress. So yes, the X-wings would have probably worked well. But that doesn't change the fact that AT-ATs had enough firepower to blow up a whole generator over a very long range. Throwing the X-wings against that would be too much of a risk, especially since they're bigger crafts and not exactly built to work in atmosphere first. Speeders are built to hug the ground and the way they bobbed up and down, from the beginning of the movie straight to the battle when they approached AT-ATs, combined to their smaller profile, tells me that they had the best chances of survival against the imperial forces, rather than the starfighters.
The speeders really were considerably agile when you think of it, which was a net advantage in letting them home on the walkers and minimize risks of being taken down, while gaining as much time as possible.
We could always discuss about the lack of a more time consuming flanking approach, but then again why would the AT-ATs let themselves be flanked? We see one move into some weird position, four legs stretched, in little to no time just to shoot a fast moving speeder at extremely short range, in a very tight packed volley, which is actually a very high performance accuracy feat.
Veers' men wouldn't be blind, they'd see the curved trajectory of incoming speeder crafts.
The only other factor I can think of, was that Luke, and the rest of Rogue Squadron didn't seem to expect their guns to be so ineffectual.
That's what I go with.
Besides, perhaps I'm reading too much into the movie, but it almost looks like they're seriously disappointed when they realize their guns can't do anything.
One way or another, they clearly had planned them to be relevant and, as pointed out earlier in the thread, the sheer size of the cannons for such crafts tells me that, somehow, they should have been efficient.
It's even possible the guns mounted on those speeders weren't part of the original template.
They definitely were bigger than the E-web cannon the snowtroopers carried with them, and in the TESB novelization, it was clearly written that this large portable gun, which looked like a bazooka (the word bazooka is used in the book!) was going to punch through the Mill's hull effortlessly. Yet that's a hull that's been tanking quite a lot of stuff.
Either they have never battled AT-ATs before, or these were a new model. Even so, the only rationale I can find for the X-wings packing much more firepower, is to facilitate the idea that in space, everything is nuclear grade, but ground weapons are smaller "because." That works to a point, but I don't think cranking the X-wings guns to max would suddenly melt everyones face off, so that they couldn't risk it.
Actually, there's no real necessity for the X-wings to have superior firepower much.
Heck, thinking of it, since they're mainly space fighters, it's largely possible that their weapons wouldn't be as efficient in an atmosphere: whatever is used to produce a bolt, that weird mix of energy, matter, all wrapped (bottled) up in one linear and sustained fancy projectile, would probably be tuned to the zero friction of space, but logically be less potent at ground level, with so much friction and convection.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Darth Spock » Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:44 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote: Actually, there's no real necessity for the X-wings to have superior firepower much.
Heck, thinking of it, since they're mainly space fighters, it's largely possible that their weapons wouldn't be as efficient in an atmosphere: whatever is used to produce a bolt, that weird mix of energy, matter, all wrapped (bottled) up in one linear and sustained fancy projectile, would probably be tuned to the zero friction of space, but logically be less potent at ground level, with so much friction and convection.
Yeah, which is what I've come to suspect. Even with the rebels surprise at not being able to defeat the AT-ATs with the speeder guns, I can't see the star fighters doing notably better. And of course the other points would still stand regarding hard decisions needing to be made by the Alliance leadership. It does sound like most people aren't expecting X-wings to easily punch through an AT-AT's defenses where the speeders could not. I can't really say I'm surprised. If the Falcon can stand up to numerous strikes from Ties, I would certainly expect a heavy assault vehicle of roughly the same size to not quickly fall to craft of a similar class.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by 2046 » Fri Apr 24, 2015 3:01 am

Y'know what else stands up to TIEs? Sand, per the trailer.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Lucky » Fri May 08, 2015 7:42 am

Darth Spock wrote: Hey, don't underestimate the power of inflatable tanks dude!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0BK1WMIYAEO5gB.jpg:large
^_^ That's clearly the black project for super-soldiers that was caught on camera. ^_^

Darth Spock wrote: True, but Luke hoofing it back to his waiting X-wing from leading the charge against the AT-ATs certainly wasn't the result of putting the craft to better use, and only 1 transport and 2 X-wings were being launched at a time. I can see they wouldn't want to risk more valuable fighters in place of speeders they couldn't take anyway, but this still plays to the idea that they would likely have done no better against the walkers. If the X-wings were packing 10x or more firepower than the speeders, and could have smacked down the AT-ATs, the rebels could have better organized their retreat under the shield.
Well, using the X-Wings could be a bad idea do to fuel concerns, and the only thing an X-Wing is likely to have that a snow speeder would not is the proton torpedos which it would have in a limited supply, and need for Stardestroyers.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by 2046 » Mon May 11, 2015 4:53 am

Lucky wrote:
Darth Spock wrote: Hey, don't underestimate the power of inflatable tanks dude!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0BK1WMIYAEO5gB.jpg:large
^_^ That's clearly the black project for super-soldiers that was caught on camera. ^_^
Lucky: Real-World Inflationist
Well, using the X-Wings could be a bad idea do to fuel concerns
At first I thought this was an odd point, given that they'd be putting fuel in the speeder tank. But, I suppose if you wanted to ensure that the X-wings had every gallon available, it might be plausible.

However, I think the simple fact is that they didn't want to risk their best hardware on a delaying action. Given that they were only allowing two fighter escorts per freighter, instead relying on the Empire not having pre-launched a fighter swarm and their seemingly-immovable ion cannon, it seems clear theirs was a fighter-conservative strategy.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Lucky » Thu May 28, 2015 7:33 am

Darth Spock wrote: Hey, don't underestimate the power of inflatable tanks dude!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0BK1WMIYAEO5gB.jpg:large
Lucky wrote:^_^ That's clearly the black project for super-soldiers that was caught on camera. ^_^
2046 wrote:Lucky: Real-World Inflationist
^_^ Didn't the head of the Skunk Works once claim we could take E.T. home if he showed up? ^_^

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by 2046 » Thu May 28, 2015 1:51 pm

He was probably talking about Martians, and besides which the sources for that appear suspect.

This is fun. Inflate more! We need a thread for this. It is a perfect send-up.

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Re: Brian's Snowspeeders Video

Post by Lucky » Sat Jun 13, 2015 8:20 am

2046 wrote: He was probably talking about Martians,
Getting to and from Mars can be done with the same technologies we used to get to the Moon, and those technologies are well known to the public so that doesn't really fit.
2046 wrote: and besides which the sources for that appear suspect.
^_^ That's what THEY want you to think. ^_^

Seriously though, there are likely some pretty sweet things tied up in "Black Projects".
2046 wrote: This is fun. Inflate more! We need a thread for this. It is a perfect send-up.
It's harder then it seems for me to do that.

You mean like this:
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rl-damage-calcs-compilation-thread.231227/page-2 wrote:
Ralson wrote:
-David Zucchino, Thunder Run wrote: Techur had spotted three men coming out of a house and into an alleyway about five hundred meters to the east. He watched them close a gate behind them and lay their RPG launchers on the ground, as though they had all the time in the world. Then one of them reached down, lifted the launcher to his shoulder, and loaded a grenade. The launcher was aimed at the battalion executive officer in a vehicle just behind the Bradley. Techur put his magnified sight right on the launcher and punched up a HEAT round. He was thinking: Ain't no way you're getting that round off, man. He squeezed the trigger and the round exploded on top of the three men. Techur couldn't see any blood or body parts. It was a very clinical scene. The men were just gone, evaporated.
Specialist Gary Techur's PoV is that of a highly trained Abrams gunner, and David Zucchino is a four time Pulitzer prize winning journalist who cross referenced dozens of expert viewpoints to present an accurate picture of the battle, so 'evaporated' can be taken literally.

Three men probably have something not far from 200 kilograms of water between them. Maybe a little less, but that's a conservative estimate since the non-water portions of their bodies were also evaporated.

It takes over 2.5 megajoules to bring one kilogram of water from body temperature to steam, so that's over 500 megajoules of work done. Since the round was an omnidirectional blast (in fact, the blast was focused away from them, straight forwards!) the full strength of it was likely dozens of times this, (in fact, it must have had enough power to vaporize enough water to describe a sphere with a radius equal to the distance between the furthest extremities of the men and the blast epicenter!) but we can assume that the blast was at least 4 gigajoules, giving us a conservative low-end estimate of an Abrams main gun as equivalent to approximately one ton of TNT.

Even if you ignore the omnidirectional nature and assume that ALL of the HEAT round's energy went into a precise vaporization (a ridiculous claim) that represents an absolute low-end of 265 lbs of TNT equivalent.
Ralson wrote: Sure. Why not.

I may be generalizing, but I think the average vs debater would assume the crater was all vaporized. They'd say that the amount of material blasted aside instead of physically vaporized would be countered by the amount of firepower wasted by firepower thrown upwards into the sky, thrown into the water, etc.

If they were one of the angry Halo debaters, they'd claim that anything obscured even for an instant by a cloud must have been vaporized. I'm not really exaggerating. I continually boggle at this "we don't know what happened, therefore it was completely vaporized" argument that I keep seeing. But let's stick with 'average.'

This is the most grandiose sounding quote, and thus would be chosen to back up the near-complete vaporization claim.


Here's the formula for a dome, which we can use to describe the volume of a crater with those dimensions:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_(mathematics)

A crater 1,900 meters across and 50 meters deep nets us around 70,911,667 m^3. 71,000,000 since I'm using two sig figs.

This of course doesn't include the original height of the island which we can use to justify that this is an even lower lowball.

Mike Wong says this about vaporizing rock: "The energy required to melt and then vapourize it is roughly 13.23 MJ/kg. Density is roughly 2330 kg/m³" A figure he got by adding up the energy to heat it up, then phase change to liquid, then heat the liquid, then phase change to gas. I could double check myself, but I might make a mistake, and I don't feel like it, and I'm willing to bet he's right.
He uses the numbers for Silica in place of Granite, considering them approximately interchangeable, so we'll do the same. (There's a lot of sand in there anyway)

So, 71,000,000 cubic meters of rock/silica * 2230 kilograms per cubic meter * 13.23 Megajoules per kilogram = 2,094,705,900,000 Megajoules.

4.184 Terajoules in a Kiloton.

500.6 Megatons.

And since only half of the blast went into the ground (and far more was spent on other effects such as vaporization of water) we can probably estimate aconservative, low-end yield of one gigaton.

In real life, the yield of Ivy Mike was 10.4 Megatons.


EDIT: Whoops, didn't see Orgun's post. But mine follows Mike Wong's vaporization-of-rock assumptions and is thus more accurate. ;7
Fun threads those. It's not every day you see someone argue the professionals are wrong.

IMB has already produced a second generation neurosynaptic chip (a robot brain), and seems pretty near to having a working quantum computer last I checked.

Emotive Systems has created a seemingly viable EEG brain scanning cap way back in the primitive year of 2007.

We have stealth tanks, planes, and helicopters designed to be invisible to radar, infrared and be silent. If they are publicly releasing this information then there must be better stuff that is still secret.

We have luxury sport "tanks" that cost less then many luxary cars for civilian use that can likely out do a large number of elite Sci-Fi military vehicles like the venerable AT-ST or Argo Buggy.
(I wish i could afford one of these. They're so much cooler and more practical then any car for the same price.)
Ripsaw EV2 Extreme Luxury Super Tank 2015 (original)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WxO6TwnFzU
Ripsaw for 2015 ridiculous drifting destruction Ken Block Hoonigan style HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfVXPSNXTAk

We make higher quality fuel from air, water, and sunlight then we pump from the ground, and are looking to go make several plants to do so.

Studio Mhox plans to market 3D bioprinted sight augmentation by January 2027. This is clearly the super-soldier projects slowly filtering down to the public.
http://mhoxdesign.com/eye-en.html

We have thought controlled robots limbs.

MIT has built robotic cheetahs that run and leap. Soon there will be entire ecosystems of robots. Robot grass will be eaten by robot gazelle, and the robot gazelle will be eaten by the robot cheetah...

The LaWS and HELLADS are advanced tactical L.A.S.E.R. weapons. Since these are public, there must be something better that uses them for plausible deniability.

We have far and away superior flashlight technology to any fictional setting I can think of.

I think I'm starting to also be playing the part of conspiracy nut while trying to "wank" the real world.

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