What would you do with a magazine of 20 antimatter missiles?

[Tom Kalbfus]

Suppose your players acquired a magazine of 20 antimatter missiles, each one does 100 times the damages of a standard nuclear missile, what would you do with it? Assuming they could be installed in the player's ship.

 

[Condottiere]

Same as the Darrians, put them into advanced stealthed boomers, and use them as deterrence.

 

[phavoc]

The government would hunt them down, as would terrorists and weapons merchamts. Ot would be akin to putting a giant bullseye on your ship.

If they actually used one they government would double down on desttoying their ship rather than risk more ships and men to capture it.

 

[Reynard]

100x the damage of a nuke missile? That goes well beyond the TL 20 AM missiles in HG2e 6D for nuclear tipped missiles vs. 8D for AM missiles) so you definitely have an arsenal of planet crackers... doomsday weapons. Do you really want anyone to know you have them? Do you have a need to use them? I'm sure the various major space powers would join forces to either destroy you and/or take them for themselves.

Put them back where you found them and walk away.

If you somehow found 20 TL 20 AM missiles worth MCr.1 each, you just might have buyers if you live long enough just keep them well hidden.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

100x the damage of a nuke missile? That goes well beyond the TL 20 AM missiles in HG2e 6D for nuclear tipped missiles vs. 8D for AM missiles) so you definitely have an arsenal of planet crackers... doomsday weapons. Do you really want anyone to know you have them? Do you have a need to use them? I'm sure the various major space powers would join forces to either destroy you and/or take them for themselves.

Put them back where you found them and walk away.

If you somehow found 20 TL 20 AM missiles worth MCr.1 each, you just might have buyers if you live long enough just keep them well hidden.

Antimatter has 100 times the energy as nuclear fusion, but that might not mean it does 100 times the damage. The effective area of an explosion with 100 times the energy of some other explosion is the square root of 100 times the area of that explosion which is 10 times the radius of nuclear explosion coming from a same size missile, so perhaps you can get away with 8D damage and an improved chance to hit.

 

[Reynard]

Just because the amount of material has 100x the energy output of a nuclear weapon doesn't necessarily mean you use the same amount. It probably uses a smaller payload hence a slightly larger damage potential and the rest of the space is the magnetic bottle holding the material in stasis so it don't go boom inside your ship.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Just because the amount of material has 100x the energy output of a nuclear weapon doesn't necessarily mean you use the same amount. It probably uses a smaller payload hence a slightly larger damage potential and the rest of the space is the magnetic bottle holding the material in stasis so it don't go boom inside your ship.

The only part you need to contain with a magnetic bottle is the antimatter, but in order to explode, the antimatter needs to react with an equal amount of matter, it doesn't matter what that matter is. So lets say your matter/antimatter warhead weighs 100 kilograms, 50 kilograms is the antimatter contained within the magnetic bottle, the other 50 kilograms is the equipment that contains it. The matter/antimatter warhead is detonated by turning off that magnetic bottle, the antimatter comes in contact with that magnetic bottle and 100 kilograms gets converted into energy by the formula E=mc^2. The rocket which propels the warhead to its target gets completely vaporized, there is nothing left but extremely energetic ions.

 

[Hopeless]

Keep them off world of course!

And keep it a secret in case its needed say to stop a massive meteor hitting the character's home world or if someone's blackmailing the character's and need an impromptu distraction with the means to cause it to self destruct if used since if the only people who know about this precaution are aboard your ship they aren't going to warn the idiot who plans on using them on them!

 

[Reynard]

One thing about an AM bomb that similar to a nuclear weapon, a detonator. In both cases something is needed to activate the material that will explode. A nuclear bomb is a two part block of fissionable (fusionalble) material that are below critical mass. It takes a primary explosion to drive the material together almost instantaneously to reach mass and a big boom. A fusion bomb uses a fission bomb to do the job. Your matter-anti matter bomb won't be very efficient if you just turn off the magnetic field since only a small amount of material will contact and explode forcing the rest away from each other randomly. Like the nuclear bomb, you need to drive the AM material into controlled amount of matter as fast as possible to achieve maximum contact. That will add components to the bomb.

Seriously though, does anyone but Grandfather what to be anywhere near a stack of TL 20 bombs featuring a highly touchy material with or without instructions?

 

[Rick]

One thing about an AM bomb that similar to a nuclear weapon, a detonator. In both cases something is needed to activate the material that will explode. A nuclear bomb is a two part block of fissionable (fusionable) material that are below critical mass. It takes a primary explosion to drive the material together almost instantaneously to reach mass and a big boom. A fusion bomb uses a fission bomb to do the job. Your matter-anti matter bomb won't be very efficient if you just turn off the magnetic field since only a small amount of material will contact and explode forcing the rest away from each other randomly. Like the nuclear bomb, you need to drive the AM material into controlled amount of matter as fast as possible to achieve maximum contact. That will add components to the bomb.

Not entirely correct in a modern nuke, but the nuclear bomb analogy is a good one. Modern nukes have a core of fissionable materiel surrounded by a shaped charge sphere of explosives that compress the core evenly into critical mass (and we'll ignore all the details of how it achieves it, what secondary plasma feed does, etc.) - if you don't do it this way, you'll get an uneven explosion, incomplete conversion of your core and bits of radioactive materiel spread all over your target area after a disappointingly smaller explosion than you were expecting. The implications for the Anti-Matter Bomb are that it simply isn't a good idea to load a magnetic bottle into a missile and fire it off at a target - if you are in a near vacuum (space), having little bits of undetonated anti-matter whizzing around just isn't healthy. As Reynard has intimated, an AM Bomb will consist of an AM core in a magnetic bottle, surrounded by an identical amount of matter and a shaped charge to drive the matter evenly into the anti-matter for a complete annihilation and energy conversion. Which is just the warhead; you'll be lucky if 1/3rd of the warhead is the antimatter itself. The rest of the missile will be propulsion, guidance and sensors, a very sophisticated detonator (it's got to do several things instantly at just the right time), a reliable power source, and the most sophisticated shielding system possible (if this missile loses power, gets hacked or has its systems interfered with it will go off in a rather interesting and unpredictable manner). All in all, if you can get 15 kg of antimatter into a 100 kg missile, you'll have a winner, and your problems will only just be starting - how exactly do you store an antimatter missile securely for any length of time?

 

[Condottiere]

Containment.

 

[phavoc]

One thing about an AM bomb that similar to a nuclear weapon, a detonator. In both cases something is needed to activate the material that will explode. A nuclear bomb is a two part block of fissionable (fusionable) material that are below critical mass. It takes a primary explosion to drive the material together almost instantaneously to reach mass and a big boom. A fusion bomb uses a fission bomb to do the job. Your matter-anti matter bomb won't be very efficient if you just turn off the magnetic field since only a small amount of material will contact and explode forcing the rest away from each other randomly. Like the nuclear bomb, you need to drive the AM material into controlled amount of matter as fast as possible to achieve maximum contact. That will add components to the bomb.

Not entirely correct in a modern nuke, but the nuclear bomb analogy is a good one. Modern nukes have a core of fissionable materiel surrounded by a shaped charge sphere of explosives that compress the core evenly into critical mass (and we'll ignore all the details of how it achieves it, what secondary plasma feed does, etc.) - if you don't do it this way, you'll get an uneven explosion, incomplete conversion of your core and bits of radioactive materiel spread all over your target area after a disappointingly smaller explosion than you were expecting. The implications for the Anti-Matter Bomb are that it simply isn't a good idea to load a magnetic bottle into a missile and fire it off at a target - if you are in a near vacuum (space), having little bits of undetonated anti-matter whizzing around just isn't healthy. As Reynard has intimated, an AM Bomb will consist of an AM core in a magnetic bottle, surrounded by an identical amount of matter and a shaped charge to drive the matter evenly into the anti-matter for a complete annihilation and energy conversion. Which is just the warhead; you'll be lucky if 1/3rd of the warhead is the antimatter itself. The rest of the missile will be propulsion, guidance and sensors, a very sophisticated detonator (it's got to do several things instantly at just the right time), a reliable power source, and the most sophisticated shielding system possible (if this missile loses power, gets hacked or has its systems interfered with it will go off in a rather interesting and unpredictable manner). All in all, if you can get 15 kg of antimatter into a 100 kg missile, you'll have a winner, and your problems will only just be starting - how exactly do you store an antimatter missile securely for any length of time?

I'm not sure if you would need a secondary detonation to drive the matter into the antimatter. Since you'd have to contain it in a magnetic field, if you did so while it was under pressure, releasing the field would allow for the antimatter to expand and do the job for you. The issue here would be to ensure the field destablized as equally as possible. But you would need that same destablization if you were detonating a charge to ensure matter equally impacted with the anti-matter in a spherical manner.

Though I'm not entirely sure if it wasn't completely spherical if it would make much of a difference. Once the antimatter started to react it should set off a chain reaction as explosions flung more matter and antimatter into each other. The yield would probably be sufficiently strong for it to make no noticeable difference in destructive power. Whether it was a spherical or directed blast (like some self-forging plasma penetrators from HEAT charges), it's still gonna be a really big boom.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Find out how many a planet I want to conquer would require for me to shoot at them before they surrender. You know, just saying.

 

[Rick]

One thing about an AM bomb that similar to a nuclear weapon, a detonator. In both cases something is needed to activate the material that will explode. A nuclear bomb is a two part block of fissionable (fusionable) material that are below critical mass. It takes a primary explosion to drive the material together almost instantaneously to reach mass and a big boom. A fusion bomb uses a fission bomb to do the job. Your matter-anti matter bomb won't be very efficient if you just turn off the magnetic field since only a small amount of material will contact and explode forcing the rest away from each other randomly. Like the nuclear bomb, you need to drive the AM material into controlled amount of matter as fast as possible to achieve maximum contact. That will add components to the bomb.

Not entirely correct in a modern nuke, but the nuclear bomb analogy is a good one. Modern nukes have a core of fissionable materiel surrounded by a shaped charge sphere of explosives that compress the core evenly into critical mass (and we'll ignore all the details of how it achieves it, what secondary plasma feed does, etc.) - if you don't do it this way, you'll get an uneven explosion, incomplete conversion of your core and bits of radioactive materiel spread all over your target area after a disappointingly smaller explosion than you were expecting. The implications for the Anti-Matter Bomb are that it simply isn't a good idea to load a magnetic bottle into a missile and fire it off at a target - if you are in a near vacuum (space), having little bits of undetonated anti-matter whizzing around just isn't healthy. As Reynard has intimated, an AM Bomb will consist of an AM core in a magnetic bottle, surrounded by an identical amount of matter and a shaped charge to drive the matter evenly into the anti-matter for a complete annihilation and energy conversion. Which is just the warhead; you'll be lucky if 1/3rd of the warhead is the antimatter itself. The rest of the missile will be propulsion, guidance and sensors, a very sophisticated detonator (it's got to do several things instantly at just the right time), a reliable power source, and the most sophisticated shielding system possible (if this missile loses power, gets hacked or has its systems interfered with it will go off in a rather interesting and unpredictable manner). All in all, if you can get 15 kg of antimatter into a 100 kg missile, you'll have a winner, and your problems will only just be starting - how exactly do you store an antimatter missile securely for any length of time?

I'm not sure if you would need a secondary detonation to drive the matter into the antimatter. Since you'd have to contain it in a magnetic field, if you did so while it was under pressure, releasing the field would allow for the antimatter to expand and do the job for you. The issue here would be to ensure the field destablized as equally as possible. But you would need that same destablization if you were detonating a charge to ensure matter equally impacted with the anti-matter in a spherical manner.

Though I'm not entirely sure if it wasn't completely spherical if it would make much of a difference. Once the antimatter started to react it should set off a chain reaction as explosions flung more matter and antimatter into each other. The yield would probably be sufficiently strong for it to make no noticeable difference in destructive power. Whether it was a spherical or directed blast (like some self-forging plasma penetrators from HEAT charges), it's still gonna be a really big boom.

Ideally you'd be one big instantaneous boom, not a pop-pop-pop of chained explosions. Like in a shaped charge, or a nuke, the only way to get one single big boom is to precisely control the explosion, hence the spherical shaped charge - ideally you want 100% of the matter in contact with 100% of the antimatter as it converts to energy (or as near as makes no difference!).

 

[phavoc]

Ideally you'd be one big instantaneous boom, not a pop-pop-pop of chained explosions. Like in a shaped charge, or a nuke, the only way to get one single big boom is to precisely control the explosion, hence the spherical shaped charge - ideally you want 100% of the matter in contact with 100% of the antimatter as it converts to energy (or as near as makes no difference!).

I get that. But having the barrier drop down works the same way. The amount of anti-matter would be relatively small. According to Wikipedia (I ALWAYS turn to Wikipedia when I want info on antimatter weaponry :mrgreen: ), 1 gram of antimatter will yield about 43 kilotons. Going back to the idea of having the antimatter compressed and allowing it to expand in a sphere works the same as slamming matter into the core. Detonation may cause some particles to drift until they encounter matter that hasn't contacted anti-matter (the explosive force outwards is not controllable, there for the matter blasting inward may halt and be forced outward).

In any case, even a 'pop-pop-pop of antimatter is enough to destroy most ships, stations and mobile battle stations.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

What you really need is a penetrator. The bomb needs to surround itself with matter. If antimatter has nowhere to go but into matter and there is more matter than antimatter, you will get 100% yield. The antimatter left after initial contact with matter will be traveling outward with the explosion, just shy of the speed of light, traveling outwards just ahead of it at the speed of light is a wavefront of gamma rays. I am sure that with enough matter involved the gamma rays won't push all the matter aside so some antimatter will escape into space. What you probably want is a penetrating warhead.

 

[Reynard]

I guess the question about the anti-matter under pressure is its physical state. Is it a gas, liquid or solid? If a gas or even a solid would just releasing the pressure ensure it dissipates fast enough for the desired reaction? Does this mean the matter for reaction is also a gas or liquid?

 

[steve98052]

In space, an antimatter weapon is messy, because it takes a lot of matter to prevent loose antimatter from escaping the blast, particularly if it were struck by anti-missile defense fire. It would be a very powerful planetary weapon, however.

For space combat at Traveller combat ranges, kinetic kill missiles are so powerful that high explosive warheads are a waste of space that can be used for hardening against anti-missile fire, for extra velocity, etc. Even nuclear weapons aren't necessarily a big advantage (except for sensor blinding and possible electromagnetic pulse) because there's no atmosphere to turn the energy into kinetic force, unless they're pretty close to the target when detonated.

Back to antimatter, use it as a compact trigger for a miniaturized thermonuclear weapon, or for planetary attacks from very long range.