Honorverse hull strength

[Major Diarrhia]

I was wondering, what yield, from an underected nuke detonated when touching the hull, could their hull withstand without being vaporized?

[RalphNumbers]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

I was wondering, what yield, from an underected nuke detonated when touching the hull, could their hull withstand without being vaporized?

I'm thinking somewhere in the range of none.

Contact nukes >> Honorverse hull material

[hrogge]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

I was wondering, what yield, from an underected nuke detonated when touching the hull, could their hull withstand without being vaporized?

You don't kill ships ( especially large ones ) with contact nukes, but you do much more damage than with the laser warheads. Even battlecruisers can survive contact nukes ( coming in at .25 c ! ).

HH ships can continue to fight, even when their hulls are breached at some points.

[Major Diarrhia]

Originally Posted by hrogge

You don't kill ships ( especially large ones ) with contact nukes, but you do much more damage than with the laser warheads. Even battlecruisers can survive contact nukes ( coming in at .25 c ! ).

So, they're really damn strong.

Originally Posted by hrogge

HH ships can continue to fight, even when their hulls are breached at some points.

Like the NX-01.

[hrogge]

Originally Posted by RalphNumbers

I'm thinking somewhere in the range of none.
Contact nukes >> Honorverse hull material

In "The Honor of the Queen" a Havenite battlecruiser was hit sucessfully by TWO contact nukes... and continued fighting ( heavily damaged ).

[RalphNumbers]

Originally Posted by hrogge

In "The Honor of the Queen" a Havenite battlecruiser was hit sucessfully by TWO contact nukes... and continued fighting ( heavily damaged ).

Thanks for the strong evidence that some of their hull was vaporized.

[hrogge]

Originally Posted by RalphNumbers

Thanks for the strong evidence that some of their hull was vaporized.

That's the job of the armor... being vaporized to protect the ship.

[Aiyel]

It's been my impression that honorverse nukes detonateon contact with the sidewalls, not the hull, and do all their damage through EMP and radiated energy. (A nuke putting out enough energy to damage the hull despite having to pass through the Sidewall.)

Because I've never seen ANY evidence of a non-laser or variant weapon passing through a sidewall.

[hrogge]

Originally Posted by Aiyel

It's been my impression that honorverse nukes detonateon contact with the sidewalls, not the hull, and do all their damage through EMP and radiated energy. (A nuke putting out enough energy to damage the hull despite having to pass through the Sidewall.)

Because I've never seen ANY evidence of a non-laser or variant weapon passing through a sidewall.

One of the six died, then another, but the final quartet came on, and an alarm screamed on Lieutenant Ash’s panel.
....
Two of them vanished in sun-bright fireballs that shook Thunder to her keel as twin, 78-ton hammers struck her sidewall at .25 C. For all their fury, those two were harmless, but their sisters’ sidewall penetrators functioned as designed.
* * *
Fearless writhed as a fresh hit killed two more missile tubes, but then someone emitted a banshee shriek of triumph, and Honor stared at her repeater. It wasn’t possible! No one could get old-fashioned nukes through the very teeth of a modern warship’s defenses! Yet Rafe Cardones had done it. Somehow, he’d done it!

That's what sidewall penetrators are good for. A contact nuke against a sidewall is useless.

[Captain Orsai]

Originally Posted by Aiyel

It's been my impression that honorverse nukes detonateon contact with the sidewalls, not the hull, and do all their damage through EMP and radiated energy. (A nuke putting out enough energy to damage the hull despite having to pass through the Sidewall.)

Because I've never seen ANY evidence of a non-laser or variant weapon passing through a sidewall.

The Honor of the Queen, chapter 33:

Two of them vanished in sun-bright fireballs that shook Thunder to her keel as twin, 78-ton hammers struck her sidewall at .25 C. For all their fury, those two were harmless, but their sisters' sidewall penetrators functioned as designed.

[Major Diarrhia]

Is there a yield for those contact nukes?

[hrogge]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

Is there a yield for those contact nukes?

up to 200 megaton fusion warheads.

[Captain Orsai]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

Is there a yield for those contact nukes?

50 megatonnes for an obsolete Grayson contact nuke given in THotQ, same yield in More than Honor: A Whiff of Grapeshot, 200 megatonnes for a Sollie stealth nuke in Ashes of Victory, nuclear mines stated as 'high' megatonne-range in Echoes of Honor.

All that I've found so far.

[CommissionerJan]

Originally Posted by hrogge

up to 200 megaton fusion warheads.

More like 4 such warheads per missile.

David Weber said that on alt.books.davidweber: HV missiles carry 4 or more warheads, the 'or more' part probably referring to heavier missile types.

Edit: That, along with a lot of other HH stuff was listed at Dahak's Orbit, but I can't connect to that site right now.

[Soulman]

Originally Posted by hrogge

HH ships can continue to fight, even when their hulls are breached at some points.

If a fusion reactor was still running a Honorverse ship could still fight when blown in half. They wouldn't because it would be suicide but they still could.

[LRH]

Originally Posted by hrogge

One of the six died, then another, but the final quartet came on, and an alarm screamed on Lieutenant Ash’s panel.
....
Two of them vanished in sun-bright fireballs that shook Thunder to her keel as twin, 78-ton hammers struck her sidewall at .25 C. For all their fury, those two were harmless, but their sisters’ sidewall penetrators functioned as designed.
* * *
Fearless writhed as a fresh hit killed two more missile tubes, but then someone emitted a banshee shriek of triumph, and Honor stared at her repeater. It wasn’t possible! No one could get old-fashioned nukes through the very teeth of a modern warship’s defenses! Yet Rafe Cardones had done it. Somehow, he’d done it!

That's what sidewall penetrators are good for. A contact nuke against a sidewall is useless.

The nukes penetarted the sidewall but they did not hit the traget direct .

The Honor of the Queen

Fearless writhed as a fresh hit killed two more missile tubes, but then
someone emitted a banshee shriek of triumph, and Honor stared at her repeater.
It wasn't possible! No one could get old-fashioned nukes through the very
teeth of a modern warship's defenses! Yet Rafe Cardones had done it. Somehow,
he'd done it!
But he hadn't scored direct hits. Saladin's impeller wedge flickered as she
staggered out of the fireballs, clouds of atmosphere and vaporized alloy
streamed back from where her port sidewall had died, but she was still there,
and even as Honor watched, the maimed battlecruiser was rolling desperately to
interpose the roof of her impeller wedge against the follow-up missiles
charging down upon her.

I would like to point out that this qoute does not prove that a HH-ship could survive a direct hit with a nuke.

THE SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR:

That much battle steel could stand up to a near-miss from a megatonrange
nuke . . . and sneered at
the best efforts of a standard laser cutter. Indeed, getting through it was a
nightmare job even with chemcatalyst
gear.

The hull of a HH-ship could stand up to a near-miss, a direct hit is something else(especially in space).

[hrogge]

@LHR: so they maybe only transfered 10-30% of their energy to the target instead the full 100%... the armor a good job I think.

[LRH]

Originally Posted by hrogge

@LHR: so they maybe only transfered 10-30% of their energy to the target instead the full 100%... the armor a good job I think.

I agree Hrogge, but it's wrong the claim that a HH-ship could shrug of a direct by a nuke.

though it's unlikely that a nuke penetrates the point-defense and the Sidewall of a HH-ship, and even much more unlikely for such a nuke to score a direct hit.

[hrogge]

Originally Posted by LRH

I agree Hrogge, but it's wrong the claim that a HH-ship could shrug of a direct by a nuke.

Although it's unlikely that a nuke penetrates the point-defense and the Sidewall of a HH-ship, and even much more unlikely for such a nuke to score a direct hit.

A superdreadnought could do it I think. But it would be in a horrible shape after this.

The primary defense of a HH ship are still sidewalls, impeller and particle/radiation shielding.

[CommissionerJan]

The Graysonite nuke that vapes the Masadan cruiser is basically a direct hit. . .IIRC it detonates 2000 meters in front of the ship which is moving at several thousand km/s.

[LordChaos]

Didn't Fearless score a dirrect hit with a nuke against the Q-ship in On Basilisk Station?

[Captain Orsai]

Originally Posted by LordChaos

Didn't Fearless score a dirrect hit with a nuke against the Q-ship in On Basilisk Station?

No, but Coglin was pissing himself at the IDEA of Sirius taking a nuke hit.

[Contemplator]

Heres some info on the armor

All right. Let's start by thinking about what armor in the RMN actually is. It is not battle steel. Battle steel is the alloy from which the main structure of the ship is built. It may be thought of as analagous to present-day steel, but is in fact an advanced composite both lighter and (effectively) denser than steel. It is also harder and tougher--or perhaps the proper word would be elastic--but it is not armor.

What armor is is an advanced sandwich of composites. The outermost skin is a very tough, very hard ceramic "alloy" designed to defeat kinetic as well as energy impacts. It does splinter when hit by something like a graser, but that is allowed for in the design, and it is best thought of as a boundary layer, intended to protect the inner armor system from routine or light damage. Behind the outer skin is a series of sandwiched layers of ablative/refractory armor designed to deflect/absorb/dissipate energy hits. Each sandwich is defined by thin boundaries of the same ceramic which forms the outer skin, and each boundary layer acts, in effect, as splinter armor against anything coming in from the next layer out.

This armor is formed in place once the internal hull is completed. It is, in essence, a "one piece skin" which covers the entire hull, thicker in some places, thinner in others. Its function is not so much to stop all damage from penetrating into the interior of the ship as it is to channel and confine that damage--to limit it, if you will. In addition, the armor itself provides an important aspect of the structural strength of the hull.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

Is there a yield for those contact nukes?

After a quick scan through the CD-ROM from War of Honor...

Pretty much throughout the books they refer to "megaton-range" nukes without giving specific numbers. In the rare cases that they do give a figure it is normally 50-60MT. On a couple of occasions 200MT is mentioned, but those are generally special occasions. 50-60MT appears to be standard missile yield. One proviso to that. It is possible that later missiles had higher yields, and that it is just not mentioned clearly.

The examples given are as follows:-

"The unprotected, wide open throat of the light cruiser Abraham’s impeller wedge engulfed the warhead like a vast scoop. Primary and backup proximity fuses flashed as one, and a fifty-megaton explosion erupted one hundred meters from the Masadan flagship."

"An attacker always knew exactly where it was, and that meant a single battlecruiser—probably even a heavy cruiser—could take out every weapon orbiting Hades with old-fashioned nuclear warheads launched on purely ballistic courses from beyond the defenses' own range. A few dozen fifty or sixty-megaton detonations would blow gaping holes in the massive, interlocking shells of mines, and not even modern hardening could have prevented the EMP from at least temporarily crippling the electronics of any spaceborne platform that survived outright destruction."

"And so the ground base waited calmly until the small craft passed almost directly between two hundred-megaton mines, then pressed a button." Note, this was a ground mine!

"A two-hundred-megaton warhead detonated less than fifty kilometers from her ship." Note, this was a special missile designed to kill Grayson One.

"A fifty-megaton explosion in space was no great matter, unless it happened to be near the pinprick dot of a ship."