2300AD Submunition Doomsday

[rgrove0172]

The deployment of a submunition, and its subsequent detonation is a nuclear event. We arent told just how big, but the rules state that ships triggering one in the close range band (300,000km) is essentially suicidal. Thats a pretty big event.

Do we then count these weapons as doomsday, autokills if they are released in orbit? Essentially frying anything within a light second? Or is the effect more electromagnetic, frying systems, blocking communications etc. "Suicidal" seems to indicate destruction but perhaps it wasnt intended as direct destruction but simply rendering the craft unfit for combat and a sitting duck.

Im trying to imagine a ship approaching the .1G threshold of a world, releasing 3 or 4 submunitions with a given trajectory, then waiting as they close. They drift in and "boom". No need to pump the lasers on the submunitions, just let the explosion do the work. They are essentially a bomb arent they?

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Nukes in space have interestingly different effects to a detonation in an atmosphere.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Ah nukes in space. A good fun topic when you like reducing space ships to glowing clouds of vaporised alloys.

Now some of this is physics theory and some based on US and USSR test detonations:

A nuke in a vacuum has a purely global effect and produces a spherical expansion wave, ground based ones are deformed by the ground which is what caused the mushroom cloud and ring and the downward blast is deflected back upwards.

An atmospheric blast causes a much higher blast and shock wave as the atmosphere and ground debris is picked up by the blast wave and carried outward. The thermal shockwave likewise causes significant damage since at nuclear blast levels just about everything is flammable which adds a firestorm to the damage. Radiation on the other hand is attenuated by the atmosphere and everything between you and the blast. Of course this means that all those buildings, trees and hills are going to be burnt, blasted and glow in the dark

In space you have very little in the way of a shock wave or blast front, there simply isn’t anything to propagate the wave, though debris from what is left of whichever ship was just destroyed will become shrapnel. Likewise the thermal blast wave is is a lot less dangerous since if you are far enough away to escape the initial blast your hull should be able to handle the heat. It is radiation that is the problem, with no terrain or atmosphere or the earth’s magnetic field to provide protection.

Exactly what the radiation protection of ships is remains speculative, generating a localised EM field around the hull to deflect radiation particles is fine for normal situations but an intense burst of hard radiation from a nuke is somewhat more of a problem.

However range is a factor and since we are dealing with range units of one light second (300,000km) simply being in the same hex does not place you in danger.

The largest of the sub munitions is the American made Big Clip and Grapeshot at 240Kt. The closest actual comparison we have is a USSR 300Kt warhead detonated at 290Km. This fried 100s of miles of phone lines and other electrical networks and caused some ground fires. However it did not cause any direct damage.

US tests with smaller weapons produced some interesting results by curving the EMP around the planet and caused damage to electrical units as far as 1,300Km away. The DoD estimated at the time that nuclear warheads used as anti satellite weapons would have an approximate 80Km kill radius.

Now some things to consider. We are dealing with 2300 technology. Copper wires should have long since gone the way of the dodo and just about everything should be fibre optic. This removes a lot of the problems whereby your wiring acts as an Ariel. Space ships and starships must be built to be far more resilient to radiation type effects than current systems. The ships hulls have low levels of magnetic shielding which will further defuse any radiation affecting the ship. At distances of a fraction of a light second the only indication you are going to have of a 240Kt nuke going off will be the light flash and a tiny flicker on radiation scanners.

Without knowing exactly how effective the radiation defences of a 2300 starship are it is impossible to say how close is dangerous. I would say that simply being in the same hex as an exploding nuke is not a danger, you would either need to be the target of a successful attack or your ref is evil.

The worst effect is going to be the whiteout zone caused by the nuke. While the radiation levels may be too low to hurt you the main worry is that your long range sensors just went to hash and rubbish meaning that you have no idea what is happening around you. Of course no one outside the whiteout can detect you either which is one of the points. You can detonate a nuke 500 hundred Km behind you and on a line of sight between you and the enemy and run like hell while they are sensor blocked.

In terms of a hit, any nuke which is close enough to catch you in the primary blast zone will kill you. 2300 Hull alloys are not strong enough to withstand direct hits and having a 2-300m radius section of your ship turn into explosively expanding radioactive droplets of metal vapour doesn’t leave much in the way of wreckage (or survivors).

 

[tanksoldier]

My problem with nuclear tipped missiles and bomb pumped lasers used in many SF settings is the proliferation of loosely controlled nuclear warheads floating around explored space.

On SSBNs today, launching the missiles is a rare event with multiple safeguards. When nukes become the standard weapon, will some of those safeguards go away?

I suppose dropping ships on down-ports is as easy or easier, with similar effects... terrorism is heavy on the mind at the moment.

 

[rgrove0172]

I kind of like the idea that they are still regulated. Captains using these weapons probably have to fill out an "environmental impact statement" or some such bureacratic nonsense. Similarly if a reactor leaks or a core has to be ejected. It lends an air of authenticity to the setting.

 

[tanksoldier]

Captains using these weapons probably have to fill out an "environmental impact statement" or some such bureacratic nonsense.

...but how do you secure them so they don't end up dropped on colonies?

 

[Nathan Brazil]

How does one secure nukes in 2300? I think, you can't per se. But consider the

From a tech perspective I think they would make the weapons more useful, and ahem...safer, they would make it easier/faster to launch but with more security to make sure a stolen nuke is not launched (Missile thinks "Did I get an authorized launch code?" "Did I get it from an authorized ship?"). Maybe safeguards like air pressure sensor even (nukes are only for space combat, right?). Nothing in the text indicates this at all. Just a speculation.

From a campaign perspective, governments and maybe people will be furious and will have safeguards. If the origin for your 2300 is WWIII like the original, the governments of the Earth will be very cross if anyone is launching nukes within the range of Earth, remembering just how damaging they were to the primitives of 1990-2000 AD. Maybe the Orbital Quarantine Zone is set up to prevent this sort of thing. People might forget events from 300 years ago, but the countries won't. Maybe a similar thing with the beanstalk at Beta Canum. Till the Kafers come around anyways.

Finally if 2300 has gone hydrogen cell and fusion and all, that means more likely that fission has gone by the wayside. To get that weapons grade material, my understanding is you need some kind of factories or fission power plants. Fission plants have been relegated to weapons manufacturing? Maybe control is on the manufacturing/sales side...

 

[GJD]

Nukes in 2300ad are military only weapons, in fact most weapons are military only. There are a couple of examples of commercial ships with weapons, but they are the exception, and tend to be operating along the French arm. The proliferation of nukes would, i suspect, be just as tightly, or loosely, controlled in 2300 as it is now. Buying an allegedly decommissioned Ukrainian Silka missile is probably possible, but you'll be paying through the nose, and once used, never forgotten.

 

[Strithe]

Captains using these weapons probably have to fill out an "environmental impact statement" or some such bureacratic nonsense.

...but how do you secure them so they don't end up dropped on colonies?

I think this is probably one of the reasons why the navies in 2300AD are relatively tiny. You simply don't want to have huge numbers of nuke-armed ships flitting about. Maybe it's also a provision the Melbourne Accords (something similar to the 1920's Washington Treaty on battleships).

Even today's nuclear weapons have some fairly elaborate safeguards on them to prevent unauthorized use. I'd imagine that even with the setting's conservative technology assumptions the safeguards are even more elaborate in the 24th century. The weapons are also probably boobytrapped so that if anyone tampers with them they set of some of the conventional explosives, disabling the device and probably killing the ones messing with it.

I would suspect that ship captains have rules of engagement that don't permit them to use detonation warheads except in very specific circumstances, and it may be that your average Frigate or destroyer captain can't even use them even if they wanted to until they get the code-key from the task force commander. I'd also bet that standard post-battle protocol is to round up any loose missiles or submunitions whenever possible.

Even if your terrorists get a nuke and manage to get it to work without killing themselves, they've got several problems.

First and foremost, everyone's going to be on high alert for the missing weapon, at least in the system or arm where it disappeared. They're not going to stop until they find it.

Secondly, how are you going to get your weapon on target? If it's a missile, you're going to need military-grade fire control to engage anything but a stopped vessel or a space station. If it's a submunition and you want to "drop it on a colony" you're still going to need a delivery system. Missiles are a no-go: their stutterwarp drives won't work in low orbit, let alone in atmosphere. Ditto for a submunition unless you put it in an aeroshell and even then you're going to need some sort of aiming system if you're going to do more than just provide a light show.

Third, at some point in this escapade you're going to need a starship to either transport your warhead to the target system, or use it as an orbital platform to drop your nuke-armed aeroshell onto the colony. Remember in 2300ad starships don't grow on trees: they're generally owned by a government, transnational foundation or coporation, or (in the latest edition) a libertine merchant family. None of them is likely to want to be come #1 on everyone's "to kill" list for any amount of money.

Really, the only way this works is if a whole military crew goes rogue and immediately drops something on the world below, or blasts their station to bits. I just don't see it as being that likely.

Besides, terrorists don't need nukes to kill large numbers of people or spread fear. For a really current example, just look at the Boston Marathon attacks: so much terror and disruption caused by readily-available consumer products.

Your average colony has all sorts of stuff that can be used to commit mayhem just laying around: hydrogen stockpiles, nuclear fusion plants, massive magnetic linear accelerators (i.e., catapults), fertilizers, or you could simply sabotage the station's life support systems. Many colonies have cargo routinely dropped by aeroshells. You could simply do a lot of damage just sterring one of those deliveries off course, or sabotaging the shell so that vital cargo doesn't arrive.

Of course, chasing a stolen nuke (or being a ship captain that finds one in his cargo hold) would make an awesome adventure seed.