Stargate: Gatebuster yield

[Mr. Oragahn]

- Which as a Stargate related side note, makes me giggle when I hear people claim teraton yields for the gatebusters in First Strike. -

Why exactly are you so opposed to them being teraton bombs anyway?

I'm opposed to those extreme yields because they're mainly fueled by that absurd wank race, led by those same people who would like to see a relatively mainstream show like Stargate compete with a certain (absurd) vision of Star Wars, since Star Trek seems to be agonizing on the side of the road for the moment, and come with equally phalic numbers to see who's got the biggest.

F34R t3h beag troutaton nUK3zoRz!!!11!11!1!1!

I think that a 812 GT warhead is quite already big enough for a missile of the size of a sidewinder or even smaller, especially since I consider that nothing in Star Wars ever came close to such a yield for a projectile of that size.
I mean, do they realize that it means that a big squadron of F-302, each fighter equipped with four of those god awful things, could already waste the surface of a planet on their own?

That should be enough for any war crazy, and yet, we need to jump around with teraton flags n' banners otherwise we're sissies or som'thing like that, because gigatons is not big enough?
Sheesh.

Secondary explosions caused by other things in the area? I suppose it could be, but the explosions didn't look like they were caused by several smaller ones, they just look like one big boom. And there were six of these booms, all equally big.

Wouldn't it require quite the extraordinary set of events for these explosions to all look exactly identical, if they were all caused by secondary explosions?

The question is, how could you distinguish anything fueling the initial explosion from the middle, in a fireball that's alerady going to be several tens of kilometers wide (812 GT)?
Answer: You couldn't.
Considering that all targets were roughly of the same nature and numbers, it even the odds even more.

We're talking about advanced spaceships (which looked almost finished, externally wise at least) and drydocks down there, run by machines and powered by god knows what sort of energy and raw materials.

Plus a change of yield would actually warrant a name change, or a mark designation, like Mark 9-B for example. Then maybe, I could eventually accept it. But if we're still talking about the same gatebuster, then I have no reason to doubt a yield explicitely stated to be able to vaporize stuff over 100 miles on the ground.
Considering that Cameron even said they had more of those, it's not far fetched that the SGC may have even run a test, somewhere in that galaxy, before using it as a tactical weapon. They actually had time to plan and develop that weapon, contrary to the end of the first season.

And though the initial "Beachhead" example was a bit funky, what with the shield over the planet and all, it did look like the explosion there meshed well with what we saw here.

It's clear that the teraton claims based on Beach Head were completely out there, for several reasons I listed at GW.

Plus even if the fireball reaches the upper atmosphere, and thus finds little pressure to keep the top (of the fireball) incandescent, the things still look like they cooled down too fast.

[GStone]

What was that race chaka is? Anyway, his race is mining naquada and Earth gets it. From SG1's report, the bomb experiments by Jonah's people made naquadria. So, they might have figured out a way to make naquadria on ther own on some Earth occupied world and shove a shitload of it into the bomb, only they were keeping it a secret from most people at Stargate?

[l33telboi]

F34R t3h beag troutaton nUK3zoRz!!!11!11!1!1!

Well, i'm afraid i have been guilty of that in the past and i probably will be in the future again. It's something of a natural response in me, when someone is being rediculous and tries to downsize something in the extreme, i compensate by upsizing instead. A character-flaw to be sure.

Though i really don't see that being the problem in this case. While 812GT warheads are more then enough to sate my thirst for yield porn, the teraton figure in this case really doesn't strike me as one of those cases where wank juice has been applied. In fact, it seems like one of those cases everybody seems to be in agreement on, even the people that are trying to downplay everything that isn't Star Wars.

I think that a 812 GT warhead is quite already big enough for a missile of the size of a sidewinder or even smaller,

Wha? It's hard to get a bead on exactly how big they are in "First Strike", since they've been put inside the MIRV and all, but in "Beachhead" they're way to large to fit on a fighter, probably way to heavy too, seeing as how weapons grade Naquadah is really dense. At least it would make sense that Naquadriah is about as heavy as well.

The question is, how could you distinguish anything fueling the initial explosion from the middle, in a fireball that's alerady going to be several tens of kilometers wide (812 GT)?
Answer: You couldn't.
Considering that all targets were roughly of the same nature and numbers, it even the odds even more.

Hmm. Shouldn't there still be some lag involved? I mean if the bomb goes boom first, then it would take some time for whatever else it's supposed to ignite to go boom as well. But in this case, the explosion all seemed to come from one single source and it spread out at a steady pace from beginning to end.

Considering that Cameron even said they had more of those, it's not far fetched that the SGC may have even run a test, somewhere in that galaxy, before using it as a tactical weapon. They actually had time to plan and develop that weapon, contrary to the end of the first season.

Well, there could have been tests, but i doubt those tests would have involved full sized MK IXs. Because Cam explicitly says that he didn't want to go down in the history books as the first man to actually detonate such a large bomb.

It's clear that the teraton claims based on Beach Head were completely out there, for several reasons I listed at GW.

The 50TT number i don't know where came from but that one is obviously seriously flawed. I heard someone on SB had done a more thorough job though, and had gotten a figre around 10-20TT. I never saw the calc myself and i probably shouldn't have taken it at face value, but people didn't seem to object to it either. And usually when one tries to wank figures too high, people will object.

And on a sidenote, have you seen the latest SG1 episode yet? What are your thoughts on the new missiles and the Naquadah explosion we get to see there?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Though i really don't see that being the problem in this case. While 812GT warheads are more then enough to sate my thirst for yield porn, the teraton figure in this case really doesn't strike me as one of those cases where wank juice has been applied. In fact, it seems like one of those cases everybody seems to be in agreement on, even the people that are trying to downplay everything that isn't Star Wars.

Everybody as the same batch of people who agreed on the teraton yield from Beachhead despite its impossibility.
That hardly convinces me.

Wha? It's hard to get a bead on exactly how big they are in "First Strike", since they've been put inside the MIRV and all, but in "Beachhead" they're way to large to fit on a fighter, probably way to heavy too, seeing as how weapons grade Naquadah is really dense. At least it would make sense that Naquadriah is about as heavy as well.

Talking sizes:

Stuff about the Sidewinder AIM-9.

The simple fact that they changed so much the volume would actually be worth a change in name, actually. Gatebuster is a generic term, and mark IX is in reference to the yield, not the mechanism, which is kinda odd, since the mechanism comes in at least two different flavors.


A hefty sidewinder.

Now, look at how big the MIRV is compared to the window of the cargo bay, or the pieces of furniture. See how big McKay is compared to a cargo bay window as well.
You'll observe that a single warhead has been significantly reduced in size.

Since I believe you can grab screencaps of the episode in question, you may be able to do an even more direct comparison than I was able to, on your own computer.

Regarding the weight, a F-302 is unable to take off and transport a stargate into orbit, despite the rocket booster and all sorts of stuff removed, but launching such a ship while in space or already in orbit wouldn't pose such a problem.

Hmm. Shouldn't there still be some lag involved? I mean if the bomb goes boom first, then it would take some time for whatever else it's supposed to ignite to go boom as well. But in this case, the explosion all seemed to come from one single source and it spread out at a steady pace from beginning to end.

There could be a lag, but frankly, I wonder how we could notice it when the first and most important stage of the nuclear explosion is ought to occur in a minute fraction of a second.
A secondary explosion would occur right in the middle of the first fireball, and you couldn't even detect the addition of energy from the fireball's growth.
We can't even spot the double nature of the flash, separated by milliseconds.

Well, there could have been tests, but i doubt those tests would have involved full sized MK IXs. Because Cam explicitly says that he didn't want to go down in the history books as the first man to actually detonate such a large bomb.

Yep, good point. One could nitpick about context, but i'll leave at that.

The 50TT number i don't know where came from but that one is obviously seriously flawed. I heard someone on SB had done a more thorough job though, and had gotten a figre around 10-20TT. I never saw the calc myself and i probably shouldn't have taken it at face value, but people didn't seem to object to it either. And usually when one tries to wank figures too high, people will object.

I've seen the ~40 TT calc at spacebattles, which got a short thread entirely dedicated to the weapon, but I remember it was adressed earlier on, maybe within a thread dedicated to the episode itself then.

I already suspected it didn't account for perspective. It also neglected the possible traces of (refined) naqahdah in the soil, since we were talking about a former goa'uld world (Chain Reaction anyone? the amounts of naqahdah can largely vary after all).
It completely neglected that though a part of the energy would be absorbed by the shield, and thus decrease the size of the fireball compared to its true potential, it would be utterly negligible in the light of the shield's altitude, which was quite low in fact. Even a multi gigaton explosion would have been largely pancaked.
And it's from that pancake, after assuming an Earth sized planet, that they got their yield.
Too many unknowns and several flaws were the valid reasons to refuse those figures.

I should copy and paste my post from GW here, for clarification.

And on a sidenote, have you seen the latest SG1 episode yet? What are your thoughts on the new missiles and the Naquadah explosion we get to see there?

Nope. However, I've heard stuff about weird flashes and delayed explosions or whatever.

Bonus: Click here for some p0rn: Carter taking care of a big toy!

[Mr. Oragahn]

What was that race chaka is?

Unas.

Anyway, his race is mining naquada and Earth gets it. From SG1's report, the bomb experiments by Jonah's people made naquadria. So, they might have figured out a way to make naquadria on ther own on some Earth occupied world and shove a shitload of it into the bomb, only they were keeping it a secret from most people at Stargate?

I don't know, but Langara (Jonas' homeworld) and Hebrida (Warrick's planet) were simultaneously conquered by the Ori.
The naqahdria was formerly converted on Langara. I don't know if they managed to grab the "receipe" to convert naqahdah into naqahdria.

[l33telboi]

Good points, good points. Especially the bit about the possible existance of Naquadah in the soil, hadn't thought of that at all.

The change in size is remarkable actually, i rewatched "First Strike" to check. It does indeed seem like the missiles themselves are no bigger then the sidewinder you just posted a pic of. Which is weird, seeing as they are still called MK IXs (Ellis referrs to them as such).

This is still not quite enough to completly convince me though, but enough to stop me claiming teraton yields as a fact. From here on i'll leave the real yield as an 'unknown' with a minimum of 800GT.

As for the pic you posted, lol, that really does look like Carter. Though my preferred p0rn comes in the form of big honking space guns rather then puny modern-day missiles. :P

In regards to the newest episode with the missiles, i'll let you watch it before going into detail. But yes, there's a flash/fireball problem there. The effects look like neither. The secondary explosion is the Naquadah going up and that is even more freaky, the shockwave suggests teraton yields according to the SDN calculator, but the fireball diminishes far to rapidly for it to have such yields. In any case, i'm sure there will be more on that subject later on.

[GStone]

What was that race chaka is?

Unas.

Anyway, his race is mining naquada and Earth gets it. From SG1's report, the bomb experiments by Jonah's people made naquadria. So, they might have figured out a way to make naquadria on ther own on some Earth occupied world and shove a shitload of it into the bomb, only they were keeping it a secret from most people at Stargate?

I don't know, but Langara (Jonas' homeworld) and Hebrida (Warrick's planet) were simultaneously conquered by the Ori.
The naqahdria was formerly converted on Langara. I don't know if they managed to grab the "receipe" to convert naqahdah into naqahdria.

They were? Huh.

When I first read that bit of the faux Carter pic, I was thinking a troll signed up and broke into your message.

[Mr. Oragahn]

What was that race chaka is?

Unas.

Anyway, his race is mining naquada and Earth gets it. From SG1's report, the bomb experiments by Jonah's people made naquadria. So, they might have figured out a way to make naquadria on ther own on some Earth occupied world and shove a shitload of it into the bomb, only they were keeping it a secret from most people at Stargate?

I don't know, but Langara (Jonas' homeworld) and Hebrida (Warrick's planet) were simultaneously conquered by the Ori.
The naqahdria was formerly converted on Langara. I don't know if they managed to grab the "receipe" to convert naqahdah into naqahdria.

They were? Huh.

When I first read that bit of the faux Carter pic, I was thinking a troll signed up and broke into your message.

Yep, conquered both.

It's a pity, because I hoped the Hebridians would turn as powerful allies.

With a tech which kicked the Goa'uld away centuries ago, and with the Kon Garat loop having small cargos fly close to the local sun, shielded or not, I thought seeing hebridian cruisers would be nice.

I hope there's some kind of resistance movement and that we'll see them in the future.

Now, on topic, a copy/paste from GW:

The former thread at GW.

Some evidence to back my claim about how the teraton yields are incorrect:





As you can see, even the gigaton yield would already reach beyond the ori shield. There's just no way to make any reliable measurement from the visuals.
Unfortunately, the teraton figures were estimated that way.

[Mr. Oragahn]

In regards to the newest episode with the missiles, i'll let you watch it before going into detail. But yes, there's a flash/fireball problem there. The effects look like neither. The secondary explosion is the Naquadah going up and that is even more freaky, the shockwave suggests teraton yields according to the SDN calculator, but the fireball diminishes far to rapidly for it to have such yields. In any case, i'm sure there will be more on that subject later on.

Several points, before going out.

1. Those five missiles, with nice blue trails, had some nice yield, right? Apparently, standard weaponry. This is so not going to please a certain 82 guy.

2. Those missiles were fired directly, which is nice, and we have confirmation that those tubes can be loaded with some nice devastative stuff.

3. So tubes seem to... be bollocks. It looks like the missiles just popped out of the hull from some random place, like, err...

- I want missiles coming out from underneath that ship guys.
- Yeah. huh, I don't recall we modelized any turret, silo, launching tube or whatsoever anywhere close to the ship's belly, man.
- Nevermind, make them appear somewhere that's dark enough so we don't get to know where they're from. Who gives anyway?
- Aye.

There are sort of turrets on each side of where the missiles exited the ship, which unfortunately could have been considered as missile turrets, but no, the CGI has the missiles be launched from between them.

4. The shots were quite spread over the surface. Might be due to the cloak?

5. That secondary explosion. First, it was delayed. Let's say that, huh, this whole shipment was shielded. Maybe a few tel'taks grouped under a theater shield? Arkad apparently gathered an impressive force after all, something like ten times what System Lords could do. A shield to protect his most important last coup shouldn't be too much.

6. That fireball cooled quite fast. Well, we didn't get a look on the final cloud, did we? It was still a bit glowing in the middle. Maybe the naqahdah released particles that, well, glow a lot but quickly loose their energy. :D
Makes me wonder what kind of shipment Jacob was about to blow up in Tangent. According to him, it would have ripped off a sizable chunk of the planet he was on.
Now, let's remember the explosion was on the night side of the planet, and eventually, those ships might have been sitting underground.

[l33telboi]

1. Those five missiles, with nice blue trails, had some nice yield, right? Apparently, standard weaponry. This is so not going to please a certain 82 guy.

Makes me wonder exactly what they fired. Either they've upgraded all their rockets to be faster or this was some new kind of missile. In any case, i think it quite nice that these mesh so well with what i've always though the yield of BC mounted missiles to be. Everytime we've heard of Naq nukes they've been somewhere in the Gigaton range and now these basically follow that pattern.

Either the VFX guys really know what they're doing or they got lucky.

3. So tubes seem to... be bollocks. It looks like the missiles just popped out of the hull from some random place, like, err...

- I want missiles coming out from underneath that ship guys.
- Yeah. huh, I don't recall we modelized any turret, silo, launching tube or whatsoever anywhere close to the ship's belly, man.
- Nevermind, make them appear somewhere that's dark enough so we don't get to know where they're from. Who gives anyway?
- Aye.

There are sort of turrets on each side of where the missiles exited the ship, which unfortunately could have been considered as missile turrets, but no, the CGI has the missiles be launched from between them.

Yeah, a bit weird. But then again it's not the first time something like this has happened.

4. The shots were quite spread over the surface. Might be due to the cloak?

My take on the matter is that the cargo ships were quite spread out when down on the surface. And quite far apart. And then when they took off they started spreading out even more. So the BC basically had to blanket the entire area with nukes to be sure they got them all, and that quite quickly too. Because they couldn't have been sure whether one of the cargo ships really did have a cloak or not. And if they miss the first time and a cargo ship manages to cloak, well they would have missed their window of opportunity.

What i find stranger is that there was just one single boom. It's not hard to explain away, but it's still strange. Basically, they must've loaded all the Naquadah onto one cargoship for some reason.

5. That secondary explosion. First, it was delayed. Let's say that, huh, this whole shipment was shielded. Maybe a few tel'taks grouped under a theater shield? Arkad apparently gathered an impressive force after all, something like ten times what System Lords could do. A shield to protect his most important last coup shouldn't be too much.

I find it more likely that it just took that long for the Cargoship carrying the Naquadah to be reached by one of the spreading fireballs. Though a shield isn't impossible either.

6. That fireball cooled quite fast. Well, we didn't get a look on the final cloud, did we? It was still a bit glowing in the middle. Maybe the naqahdah released particles that, well, glow a lot but quickly loose their energy. :D
Makes me wonder what kind of shipment Jacob was about to blow up in Tangent. According to him, it would have ripped off a sizable chunk of the planet he was on.

To tell you the truth i was a bit underwhelmed by the explosion itself. Hell, if 10 pounds of Naquadah merits the evacuation of an entire state, then a cargo ship full of it should blow huge chunks from a planet. The shockwave suggests a yield of somewhere around 1 teraton, which would fit according to what we previously knew of Naquadah, but then there's the fireball, or should i say lack of fireball, as well as any significant dustclouds.

[Mr. Oragahn]

1. Those five missiles, with nice blue trails, had some nice yield, right? Apparently, standard weaponry. This is so not going to please a certain 82 guy.

Makes me wonder exactly what they fired. Either they've upgraded all their rockets to be faster or this was some new kind of missile. In any case, i think it quite nice that these mesh so well with what i've always though the yield of BC mounted missiles to be. Everytime we've heard of Naq nukes they've been somewhere in the Gigaton range and now these basically follow that pattern.

Either the VFX guys really know what they're doing or they got lucky.

They're not necessarily faster, but just fired directly at their target, instead of that vertical silo launching system we've seen used even by the Prometheus, where missiles have to turn and accelerate towards their target.

Talking yields, the explosions, before the secondary one, were all of different sizes. A reasonable thing to od would be to consider the smaller explosion, and even then, we can't be sure of what really happened due to the weapon grade naqahdah being the target.
Those missiles could have been tactical strikes, in the multi kiloton range.

Interesting point, the secondary super explosion seems to not originate far from the most powerful explosions resulting from impact, that is, explosions 2 and 3, which were not "far" (all relative) from each other.

But this brings me to another point adressed below.

3. So tubes seem to... be bollocks. It looks like the missiles just popped out of the hull from some random place, like, err...

- I want missiles coming out from underneath that ship guys.
- Yeah. huh, I don't recall we modelized any turret, silo, launching tube or whatsoever anywhere close to the ship's belly, man.
- Nevermind, make them appear somewhere that's dark enough so we don't get to know where they're from. Who gives anyway?
- Aye.

There are sort of turrets on each side of where the missiles exited the ship, which unfortunately could have been considered as missile turrets, but no, the CGI has the missiles be launched from between them.

Yeah, a bit weird. But then again it's not the first time something like this has happened.

Actually, it seems that I was a bit wrong. There's in fact a single rack of five lined up big darker structures, in the middle of the ship. They do look like turrets, and strangely, those things are not present on the Apollo (by comparing Family Ties to First Strike, we get nice views of the ships' bellies).

So maybe those missiles were actually fired from turrets. Five turrets. Five missiles. Mh... nope, the four first missiles seemed to come from the second turret, and the fifth missile from the fourth one.

Hey, maybe they didn't screw up that much this time! :)

4. The shots were quite spread over the surface. Might be due to the cloak?

My take on the matter is that the cargo ships were quite spread out when down on the surface. And quite far apart. And then when they took off they started spreading out even more. So the BC basically had to blanket the entire area with nukes to be sure they got them all, and that quite quickly too. Because they couldn't have been sure whether one of the cargo ships really did have a cloak or not. And if they miss the first time and a cargo ship manages to cloak, well they would have missed their window of opportunity.

What i find stranger is that there was just one single boom. It's not hard to explain away, but it's still strange. Basically, they must've loaded all the Naquadah onto one cargoship for some reason.

I'd rather think that there were at least five tel'taks, more or less filled with small amounts of naq, and eventually an al'kesh to tug several of those goa'uld containers seen in Bounty.

The different yields would support the idea that for five identical missiles, such a difference in fireball size can only be explained by the energy being boosted up by other reactants.

I find it more likely that it just took that long for the Cargoship carrying the Naquadah to be reached by one of the spreading fireballs. Though a shield isn't impossible either.

The puzzling element is indeed the massive secondary explosion. Looking closer to the planet, it seems to originally occur at a point which was barely within the fireball radius of any explosion, but fore sure, this was a more important quantity of naqahdah, no doubt about that.

Oh, remember Chronus' ha'tak crashing on Delmak?



What yield is that (knowing that the ship's stock of naqahdah was already dented and that for all we know, there's been no naq reloading since they borrowed it)?

To tell you the truth i was a bit underwhelmed by the explosion itself. Hell, if 10 pounds of Naquadah merits the evacuation of an entire state, then a cargo ship full of it should blow huge chunks from a planet. The shockwave suggests a yield of somewhere around 1 teraton, which would fit according to what we previously knew of Naquadah, but then there's the fireball, or should i say lack of fireball, as well as any significant dustclouds.

Resurrection, season 7.

Lee: According to these readings there’s a ten-pound block of naquadah in this thing.

Barrett: What’s that supposed to mean?

Lee: That would be very bad if it went off.

Barrett: Well, it’s a bomb, usually it’s not a good thing when they go off.

Lee: True

Barrett: Can we move this?

Teal’c: From what I know of Goa’uld weaponry that would be unwise. It may have a sensor that would detect such an action.

Lee: Uh, yeah, I don’t even want to go there. Let’s uh, see if we can disarm it here first.

Barrett: I’m going to get the local authorities to start evacuating the area.

Lee: Thanks for the vote of confidence

Barrett: How many miles are we talking about here.

Lee: I don’t know, how big is Orange County?

Area: 1,455 km²

If the amount of fake naqahdah transported by the tel'tak Jayzek robbed is of any indication, they didn't have a lot of it anyway, but that would fit with the explosions seen from space, and would mean that the missiles fired by the 304 were of low yields.

Do wee need to know how powerful the super explosion was? If yes, I'd say let's take the latest frame, assume lots of dust thrown into the air, and try to get a calc from that.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Quick estimation of the energy necessary to "vaporize a stargate".

It's hard to know all the dimensions of a stargate. What we know is that it's 22 feet wide.

Stargate width: 22 feet = 6.7056 m
Ring width: 2.6 feet = 0.793 m
Ring ext. thickness: 3 feet = 0.9144 m

Note that I couldn't find a proper picture to get the ring's external thickness, so I browsed sites until I found a believable figure of 3 feet.
So that's what I used.

The deal is that we're going to see what the intensity will be at a radius of 22 feet, then get the lateral surface area of a cylinder with a radius of 11 feet and a height of 3 feet.
So assuming the gatebuster is placed roughly in the middle of the stargate, and based on a yield of 812 GT, here's what I obtained:

I = 812 GT / 141.262 m²
I = 5.75 GT / m²

A = 2 x pi x r x h
A = 38.526 m²

E = A x I
E = 221.454 GT

So it takes at the very least 221 GT to vaporize a stargate.

That is a minimal figure, as the real stargate surface shoult be obtained by accounting for the slope surface, and the end results could easily twice to three times bigger.

[Mr. Oragahn]

With Sarpedon from SB.com quoting me, from a thread at gateworld (which itself has links to this thread), I'd like to adress two comments An Anicient made.

You fail, two things, first, the shield absorbs energy, any part of the fireball touching the shield would not pancake out, it's energy would mostly be absorbed, resulting in no pancaking. Secondly, we already know what happens when naquada is present on a planet that suffers this kind of large attack, its turns into a plasma ball, this planet did not.

1. Let's remember that if we're going to use visuals to gauge the yield of the weapon, we'll consider EVERYTHING, including the fact that the shield didn't seem to absorb that much energy in fact. Otherwise, we would simply not be able to see the cloud's inner glow that easily, nor so long.

2. It is not impossible that traces of naqahdah, refined or raw, eventually under the form of dust, could be found on localized zones only, not over entire continents, a whole planet's surface, or through the entire crust or else.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Some stuff about the Horizon platform and the gatebusters.

The tip of the 6 gatebusters and 4 decoys, inside the Horizon vehicle.
McKay is looking at the Horizon, about to be launched on Asura, here and here.
You can notice the size of the device, notably by noticing the presence of the furniture at the other end of the room.
See the device from below, as it's launched.
You can check the diameter of each warhead here.

[Mr. Oragahn]

This is a post largely inspired from a reply of me at SBC, where I finally took a jab at estimating the size of the Horizon platform, plus the gatebusters inside, notably to prove my initial eyeballed assertion about a relative sidewinder size:

Let's check the Horizon while it's about to be launched. Let's try to think about its size, considering the DRAWERS at the back of the room. Unless such furniture is not incredibly bigger than humans, I'm 200% certain that the Horizon wasn't that big.







Say 15 cm width, without any fins.

Now, sidewinders, for comparative purposes:

http://www.defenselink.mil/transformati ... 3M-010.jpg
http://www.defenselink.mil/transformati ... 8O-086.jpg
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/ ... 2B-006.jpg
http://www.eielson.af.mil/shared/media/ ... 8S-083.jpg
http://www.arcent.army.mil/cflcc_today/ ... /13_06.jpg

As you can see, with curved hands, the tubes have diameters which correspond to the distance between the tip of the middle finger and the wrist joint. Which is 15 cm on the average.

(Original post from the following thread: The Borg (All of them) vs All the SGverse powers! Who wins?)