Starfleet Photon Grenades

[Mith]

So, I was looking at 2046's Star Trek Ground Combat page and I saw this:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWground.html

Most specifically, in regards to Starfleet's photon grenades. He works off of a 150 ton bomb to get in the range of a couple hundred gigajoules. However, I'm sure he didn't have this at the time:

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html

I was actually very excited when I learned that the calculator went down into the ton range. In any case, using the stated distance:

Kirk: "An evaluation, Mr. Kelowitz. Where do you think they are?"
Kelowitz: "If I were them, I'd go to the high ground on the right. I'd make it 1,200 yards, azimuth 87. It's pretty close for one of these little jewels, Captain."
Kirk: "It'll be a lot closer to them. Stand clear."

1,200 yards, that equals to .68 miles, to about where they were sitting. Going with this, I looked at the pressure from such an explosion would have at that distance. Unfortunately, hundreds of gigajoules are out, as at .25 PSI, the explosion would still have enough force to shatter windows. I am unfortunately, unsure what .1 PSI means, as the key doesn't go that low (at the bottom), so I decided to go safe and have the range of the weapon, so I went with 5.5 tons, which puts .1 PSI at .67 miles, so close enough that we'd probably see some small bits of dirt and such being pushed back (as we saw in the scene), but not enough to cause any real damage.

Not bad for what amounts to a small grenade launcher with at most 2-3 miles worth of distance. I can't imagine what would happen to the first AT-AT that attempted to storm a Starfleet base.

[Picard]

Interesting.

[2046]

The site says windows will shatter, with only some causing injury (blowing out). I would want more information on such light overpressures before declaring my earlier ballpark estimate too high.

There are also many considerations with super small (or super big) nuke calculations, and I don't know if the site takes those into account. The general ratio of blast vs thermal vs radiation might be all wrong at such MOAB-esque scales.

More research is needed on both ideas, but for now I can live with it.

[Mith]

The site says windows will shatter, with only some causing injury (blowing out). I would want more information on such light overpressures before declaring my earlier ballpark estimate too high.

Oh yes, my apologies, I should have been more clear. This is a lower limit. Hence why I put it even outside the .1 PSI, which given that .25 will only break windows and may cause injury, would seem to suggest it can't be all that dangerous.

At a higher limit, assuming that .1 PSI isn't that dangerous compared to .25 PSI, I can get 40 tons and that would still only be .64 miles, allowing for .04 miles between them and possible dangerous pressure. So there is a great deal of space to climb from the lowest possible yield to the higher, more probable yield as well.

So keeping that in mind, you can easily shoot right back to like 165 gigajoules. My problem is that I don't have any means of determining just how much force .1 PSI is. If it's like a gentle blow, then it greatly increases the possibilities.

There are also many considerations with super small (or super big) nuke calculations, and I don't know if the site takes those into account. The general ratio of blast vs thermal vs radiation might be all wrong at such MOAB-esque scales.

Looking at it, the designer based much of his information on "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons 3rd Edition" by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan. The calculator also won't allow me to calculate anything below .0001 kilotons, but that may just be due to space limitations and not a conscious effort on lower level explosions.

So yes, there may be some problems in regards to the higher and lower yields. I do notice that these calculators can vary *slightly* in terms of their results, so even from a similar calculator I could get like 7 tons for the exact same measurements.

Still, using this, we can get between 5.5 tons to about 40 tons.

And SWST said the UFP didn't have artillery.

Also, since I do have your ear, in regards to the episode with Jake and Bashir in the line of fire, while it is clear that whatever the Klingons were using against the two were shockingly low--it is noteworthy to mention that the Klingons did later destroy the Runabout, with artillery I believe. Given how those things can survive orbital falls, low-grade nuclear weapons, and the like, it would suggest something along the lines closer to the photon grenade.

More research is needed on both ideas, but for now I can live with it.

Well, even at 5.5 tons, that's still damn impressive for what amounts to a small launcher. It's not even a full on artillery vehicle. With six of them, you could do some serious damage.