[MERCENARY] Combat at -180 degrees C

Perhaps I am overplaying this too much - if colonists can erect domes, dig out tunnels and run refinaries on the world at these temperatures, I'm sure they will be using all manner of suits, tools, welding gear and high temperature equipment, cranes, jacks, rovers etc.

That means soldiers arriving, used to combat in a vacuum, shouldn't be too badly equipped in comparison (noting the comments about the temperature of space, above).

I guess my challenges will instead have to be more about surviving, living in and defeating the environment - it looks like the weaponry and equipment should probably be temperature proof. The mercenary unit would be equipped at around TL 10-11 level... now if they were TL 6, then of course they'd bloody struggle!!!
 
Presumably there would be very swift and very catastrophic consequences (even for a high tech force) if their protective vehicles/suits/etc were penetrated due to combat or non-combat damage. So a hit that might normally not be disastrous could be very serious indeed in such an environment.
 
Mithras said:
Perhaps I am overplaying this too much - if colonists can erect domes, dig out tunnels and run refinaries on the world at these temperatures, I'm sure they will be using all manner of suits, tools, welding gear and high temperature equipment, cranes, jacks, rovers etc.

That means soldiers arriving, used to combat in a vacuum, shouldn't be too badly equipped in comparison (noting the comments about the temperature of space, above).
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Yeah but I think that's somewhat avoiding the point. Ideally we should be thinking "how is all this possible in the first place, and how things work given the technology required to survive there", not "oh, it's already described in the books so it must be possible so I don't need to think about how its done".

If you care that much about environmental realism that you're concerned about how combat would work in extreme environments then I suspect you probably care enough to wonder how anything works in those environments, and not just take it as read that they do work.
 
Dont just think about how will weapons work, but also thier effects. The energy bleed (or what ever you call it) from energy weapons is going to rapidly turn the battlefield into a nasty fog bank. And some of those gasses may well react with each other.

In the late 70's early 80's laser guided weapons where seen as being very widespread in battle. then, as they got a bit wider testing, it was quickly found that battlefields are often full of smoke and dust and other stuff floating in the air and makeing lasers largely useless. I bet 1 FGMP fired over a snow field will blot out everything for a few k's around. On Titan it maybe close to batle ending until it clears.
 
Hmm, maybe not....

Going back to the liquid nitrogen. That stuff sits in the dewar boiling continuously. The gas layer above the liquid surface is clear and easy to see through especially if its been sitting around. You only get clouds of inpenetrable vapour when the cold gas boiling off hits air laden with water vapour condensing the vapour visibly. The effect is dramatic because of the huge difference between ambient (20C or so) and the boiling liquid nitrogen (boiling point -196C). That difference is presumably not going to exist at the planetary surface of a planet covered in frozen gases.

Once the water vapour has condensed it clears very quickly unless you disturb the air. Plunge something warm but dry into the liquid nitrogen and there's virtually no 'steam cloud' effect until the rapidly boiling liquid nitrogen throws cold nitrogen gas up into the warm, water laden air. Most of the issues with really cold gases and clouds of steam are a bit of an artifical effect of seeing them interface with our ambient temperature.

So would a battlefield at -180C not experience the same levels of dust and smoke as an ambient one from the same reasons rather than some bonus of sudden extended vapours? Explosives will throw chunks of stuff around. The 'air' temperature is going to be so cold any vapour you produce will surely rapidly settle and disappear as it refreezes. Fusion and plasma are fusion product and plasma....the temperature involved there is going to be vaporising whatever it hits whether its at a frigid -180C on Titan or in our comparatively balmy 20C, the temperature of the plasma/fusion products is going to be N hundred (N thousand??) degrees/joules of energy state higher than whatever it hits and boil it and a mere 200C difference is going to pale in comparison surely

Id have thought any permanent installation that throws out heat will have far more of an issue than soldiers or vehicles passing by. Id assume the engineering aim would be for heat to vent up if anything, into the already gaseous layer and be lost rapidly and the basic skin of anything down there to be at or nearly at ambient external temperature for the planet with insulation to keep the heat inside.
 
The 200 degree difference is not large in absolute terms, but is big in the number of things that are frozen on the ground. waiting to turn back into gasses. And yes they will refreeze quickly and fall back down. How quick is a big question and I have no idea.

As for dust, there is no normal atmop to suspend it in, so it should settle quicker. However, anywhere with lo Gravity, it is going to stay up longer. The 2 may cancel out, again I dont have the data.

If you dont like dealing with it, just rule it doesnt happen. It is a serius pain to deal with, even in real life. But it sure can be something different to throw at them.
 
zozotroll said:
As for dust, there is no normal atmop to suspend it in, so it should settle quicker.
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Um, an atmosphere is an atmosphere when it comes to dust, there's no such thing as a "normal atmosphere to suspend it in". Mars' atmosphere is only a few millibars at the surface, but that's enough to hold dust in global duststorms. Whether it's cryogenic or not, dust can stay up in atmospheres for as long as the wind suspends it there.
 
Right, it has to do with density, and nothing with temp. However, I was thinking that an iceball has little to no atmosphere at all. Or am I wrong about that?
 
EDG, a thought hit, do we know how dense the dust storms on mars are? Are they like a desert sandstorm where you cant see more than 2-3 feet sometimes? Or are they thinner as they cant hold up as much dust at once? Although I guess the lesser gravity would help keep stuff up.
 
Well the OP was talking about a Titan-like atmosphere, which is pretty thick so that's what I was talking about when it came to dust suspension. Your average iceball (like say Triton or Pluto) would have a microbar-thick atmosphere at most which won't really do much for dust.

Mars' duststorms are thick enough to block the view of the surface, but because the atmosphere is so thin there the wind doesn't really have enough energy to pick up anything else. You can probably stand in the middle of one, buffetted by fast winds, and not feel more than a light breeze (but it'll pick up dust like no tomorrow). The Mars Rovers have survived dust devils and global storms, and if anything all they did was blow dust off the solar panels :) - Most of the actual dust is actually suspended higher in the atmosphere, IIRC.

Conversely, if you were in a really thick atmosphere (like Venus) then winds wouldn't get very fast at all because there's so much mass to the air. But if they DO pick up, then a light breeze would be able to knock you down easily (again because of that mass). So basically, gods help you if somehow a hurricane starts in a thicker atmosphere because it'll really destroy everything in its path (this means that weather on worlds with a Dense atmosphere is going to be more extreme and "heavy" than on worlds with standard and thin atmospheres).
 
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