Explaining Nuclear Weapons in Space Combat

Spacedock delves into the complexities of nuclear weaponry in science fiction space combat.
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[@Spacedock]

Check out our partners over at #TheSojourn, an Original Sci-Fi Audio Drama! Volume Three coming to Patrons/Backers this Saturday! www.thesojournaudiodrama.com/

[@Marinealver]

4:16 Honorverse Videos soon?

[@TheArklyte]

Nuclear weapons in science fiction - underpowered and underused. Unless the story ends by using one, which characters aim to avoid. Then it becomes supernova. Remember Davy Crockett? The one example of miniaturized warhead that is remembered as a joke due to range limitations of its recoilless rifle method of delivery? Nowadays any 150+mm ATGM, artillery shell, small cruise missile, MLRS munition or light drone can carry those(not that there is much difference left between light cruiser missile, attack drone and heavy ATGM with advent of loitering munitions concept, growing ranges and decreasing sizes). And deliver them with pinpoint precision over dozens of kilometers. Remember those dozen plus something ATGMs on attack helicopters like AH-64 or Mi-28? Now imagine all of them having a 0.01-10 kiloton warhead and 20km range on each of those. That's NOWADAYS tech. Something we can do even today. And in fiction despite however dire the situation is, we don't use it. And funnily enough, aliens don't use them either. They use clean ecofriendly solar powered planet busting beams that leave no radiation behind... Nuclear weapons are somehow scorned at even in setting with normalized hyperefficient ie magical nuclear propulsion. Remember episode of Stargate Atlantis where they can't defeat Wraith mothership juiced up on ZPM energy because its _biological_ armor "regenerates too fast"? Remember how a few episodes prior they've used oversized MIRV to destroy asuran homeworld(or at least "strictly justified military targets" on it)? Why wasn't said MIRV used in this situation again? You may ask "but what it'd do if more powerful sci-fi weapons are failing"? To which I'd answer - it'll give both the organic ship and everyone on board severe radiation poisoning. Then I'll just sit back and watch how said _organic_ ship turns into giant cancer cell every time it tries to regenerate its armor and hull Akira style:P

[@anamericancelt6534]

How about a video on methods of launching starfighters from ships?

[@MrNicoJac]

Constructive feedback: I was a bit overwhelmed by all the new physics and bombs, and the great overview that you shared at 9:35 would've really helped me if you'd put it before listing all the options. Just adds more structure, so I can better keep up with what's different between the previous and the next option. But that the list was in there was already a massive help!

[@MrNicoJac]

Also, hypothetically, does this mean that there's a 7th way of using nukes to kill an opponent? Like, even if you can't breach their armor or get through their point defense guns/lasers, could a barrage of close-enough nukes still deposit sufficient radiation->thermal energy into the enemy ship's hull to overpower their cooling systems, and just _cook_ the crew?? (henceforth officially trademarked as a Dutch Space Oven, hehehe)

[@warmachine5835]

Somehow the idea of using a nuclear weapon as the 'propellant' for a kinetic weapon never occurred to me. Probably because it's such an outlandish notion based on how we normally conceive of such a device. Despite the Orion Drive being right there.

[@Invizive]

After all, the fastest object launched by man was a manhole cover sent into the sky with a nuke.

[@akizeta]

@@Invizive Operation Plumbbob, Shot Pascal-B, if anyone wants to look it up.

[@LAJ-47FC9]

@@Invizive, yes indeed! Funnily enough, it was the Russians that tried it, which doesn't surprise me.

[@xavi-kun]

Main example I can think of this in science fiction is the Heavy Mass Cannon from “Knights of Sidonia”. While it’s not specifically stated, the Heavy Mass Cannon (henceforth referred to as the HMC but can also be called the “Very Big Fucking Gun” as it fires rounds several kilometres in diameter and length) the muzzle flash is said to resemble a blue nuclear fireball, therefore leading to the current theory that it uses a compressed nuclear blast to fire its projectile.

[@spamviking]

Humans are 40k space orks.

[@Santisima_Trinidad]

One final use of a nuclear device, sourced from an *incredibly* fun debate i had with someone many a moon ago about railguns versus missiles in spaceborn combat. Rather than attempting to use the nuke to directly damage the enemies ship, you can optimise your nuke for outputting broad spectrum radiation, ranging from gamma to visible to infra red. You then fire the nuke ahead of a traditional volley of conventional missiles. The nuke detonates as it enters the enemies point defense fields, and the vroad spectrum radiation whites out the enemies sensors for a short time, preventing there piint defense from accurately targeting your relatively small missiles. Your missiles, already being locked onto a far larger and easier to detect target, can proceeded to close and impact onto the enemies ship largely unaposed.

[@Phootaba]

A plutonium enhanced ECM delivery system 😉

[@battleoid2411]

Ah yes, the naval grade flashbang

[@MykhasV]

This tactic was used in Expanse when Rocinante rescued Razorback for the first time.

[@Nostripe361]

This is actually something I have thought about in my own stuff. I feel that a nuclear missile would be detected and immediately targeted by any decent pdcs before it could make contact so instead use it as a giant flash bang to screw with enemy communication and sensors; either to hit with a follow up conventual strike or as a cover for your own escape. I could also see a nuke used in a crude way as a signal flare. If you are in a universe where ships have passive and active scanners (with active being stronger with worse range or restricted to how long they can be active) a ship in your fleet could launch a nuke to alert any other ships in the area that they have discovered enemy forces since there is no way a ship in system wouldn't detect that much radiation and light being released.

[@josesanchezrodriguez1783]

That's kinda what Holden does is the IFF episode of The Expanse

[@jaffarebellion292]

I love Stargate's delivery method, even if they did have to immediately nerf it because the audience would just ask "Why don't you teleport a nuke onboard their ship?" every time there's a space battle. Though I think my personal favorite use of nukes in sci-fi is Battletech, specifically the first and second Succession Wars, as well as the age before the signing of the Ares Conventions. Not for any clever implementation, but for the simple, terrifying concept of nukes being used so casually and so often as to render them "frankly, fucking boring", burning thousands of worlds beyond the point of habitability at the whim of incompetent nobles who no longer know any other way to fight.

[@jimmyseaver3647]

Remember Tintavel.

[@VallornDeathblade]

Battletech's use of WMDs in general is pretty good. There's entire planets that have been rendered uninhabitable because someone infected the water supply with a bioweapon and everyone died horribly. However, Nukes aren't always the solution to every problem, sometimes you're fighting people for whom 'nukes are merely inconventient'.

[@jaffarebellion292]

@@VallornDeathblade Nemo me impune lacessit

[@Banchoking]

I remember that there was a Stargat/XCOM crossover series where Earth's primary attack method was just teleporting nukes onto ships. The only exceptions were when there was something they needed on board.

[@blackops555]

I personally believe the 1st and 2nd SWs were written as a warning to mankind as a "This is what we are capable of, let's not get there.". Especially when violence isn't the answer. It's the question, and the answer is yes. Redde Creditori Tuo, Fucko...

[@igncom1]

I can only imagine the design of a cannon that uses nuclear bombs as the propellant for it's shells, with a wide array of shots from plasma to solid shot. Almost like a return to the good old days of sail! LOAD THE NUCLEAR GRAPESHOT!

[@dangernoodle8813]

casaba howitzer

[@chrisanderson2487]

@@dangernoodle8813 that’s a nuclear shaped charge, if we’re talking about nuclear propellants we’re more thinking a project Orion driving charge.

[@Marinealver]

Macro cannons on Battle Fleet Gothic

[@MatterBeamTSF]

While a nuclear cannon would be awesome, I leave the design of barrels that can withstand the energy and pressure of a nuclear explosion *repeatedly* inside of them up to you...

[@igncom1]

@@MatterBeamTSF If the enemy can survive a full broadside, then we deserve to lose.

[@Marinealver]

A realistic space battle would be akin to 2 Ballistic Submarines in different oceans trying to Bullseye each other.

[@mikehateberg9533]

And really when you think about the advances in technology it's easy to imagine precision guided munitions would also advance on a somewhat similar path. And I can scarcely think of any imagined setting where starship engines don't emit some manner of radiation. Thermal, visible light, radio, ionizing and whatever else you can imagine. And missiles are very good at hunting out that radiation. NATO has anti-radiation missiles currently. Wherein any use of a radar sensor means you can be guiding a missile straight onto yourself. So the precision munition's guidance systems wouldn't even have to be that much more advanced, albeit advanced enough to account for the massive distances.

[@cdgonepotatoes4219]

@@mikehateberg9533 Well, wire-guided ordnance would be a bit cumbersome with distances multiplying by the hundreds, and it's possibly more likely that both contestants will know each other's position. I assume the main issue of ordnance would be for it to be intercepted by point defense. Because wire guidance isn't really an option, unless you have some insane optics that allow you passive targeting, yor your radar/laser is going to be picked up and the enemy will use countermeasures. You can make a missile that's armoured well enough to survive all your enemy's point defense or a very sneaky one, both requiring them being fast and with no guidance to be jammed.

[@calebbarnhouse496]

Not really, by the time space combat is a thing missiles will be rendered completely obsolete by the introduction of lasers, you'd have to shoot an astronomical amount of missiles for there to be enough to bypass them, really it's more likely to be a match of who can burn through there enemies hull first, lasers being the speed of light means that any projectile slower then that simply won't have the range needed to fight the enemy and with the way energy weapons work the method of delivery isn't that important so you'll pick the fastest, only other viable weapons will be railguns, only way lasers won't be dominant is if shielding technology can effectively nullify them and you'll require world ending attacks to punch through them

[@battleoid2411]

@@calebbarnhouse496 the issue is that lasers lose cohesion, and require line of sight. A ship on the opposite side of the planet, or simply extremely far away, could simply program its missiles to maneuver for an intercept then ride in cold, only firing their engines once they're so close that the lasers will barely have time to take them down. Also, having guidance systems means that you can lob them across a system and as long as they're programmed right they'll home in on a ships radar/thermal/ maybe even optical signature. A laser can only be fired at what you see, and they are very small, so if you don't have a perfect picture of your target you won't hit, whereas a missile Salvo might land a few hits when their seekers get closer, or at the very least force the target ship to defend itself raising its signature and opening it up for more direct strikes.

[@calebbarnhouse496]

@@battleoid2411 cool thing about those missiles, that doesn't really work unless your enemy actually sits there entire fleet out near all the debris around a planet, and even then, your under the assumption that you can use a planet as cover effectively, which only is even possible, if you have either plantery shields, or nothing on the planet you care about, because if you have a city down there, a ship like that with all it's mentions and reactors could very easily cause irreversible damage to the entire planet, killing trillions of people, if not more, and finally even with that, it doesn't matter if your warhead can destoy something in 1 hit, when it can never hit its target, lasers di get less effective at range, but at even close range for space combat with a basic laser system there's no way that you can really hope to get near them unless they just don't bring countermeasures, if anything small drone craft with a dozen missiles most of which are fake would be infinitely better then any main ship missile simply because they can actually get in stealthily, and then get inside the ranges needed to get through there counter systems, missiles are only effective today because we live on a structure, where cover exists, in space, outside of places that make up very very little of space, there's no cover, and if you fight near where there is cover there will be a giant safety issue, being that the destruction of a ship will almost certainly lead to them falling through orbit and causing untold destruction, it's never a winning scenario to fight near a planet unless you have shield, or nothing on the planet, in which case your ships shouldn't be fighting the enemy, your ground based systems should put holes in there shield, or take it down for small amounts of time to return fire, if they respond with constant bombardment you simply keep it up, a fleet constantly threating you is spending a lot of resources to seige your city, unless you have a structure outside the shield then there's no reason not to just endure it over risking the insane costs from losing even a single ship

[@Sky_Guy]

Woo, Starsector shout-out! Everyone here should give that game a try, it's fantastic!

[@resurgam_b7]

The game Children of a Dead Earth is the only media I've ever seen portray nuclear munitions in space realistically, it's definitely not for everyone being menu heavy and containing some rather obtuse gameplay systems, but there is certainly some satisfaction to be gleaned from being able to design then launch hundreds of nuclear projectiles the size of a soda bottles at several km/s towards your hapless foe, then watch as their pitiful point defense fires continuously for several seconds, even destroying a few of the devices before being absolutely obliterated when the remaining projectiles slam into the hull or detonate around it, vaporizing nearly the entire mass of the ship in a light show visible from the other side of the solar system :D

[@icefire5799]

Sadly one cannot design a functioning projekt orion drive

[@wesleythomas7125]

I couldn't get my head around the orbital mechanics part of the game...

[@resurgam_b7]

@@wesleythomas7125 Yeah, it definitely takes some dedication to figure that out well enough to complete the game. The biggest mind bender for me was frame of reference, it looks like you've got your trajectory all figured out, then you realize you're in a wonky frame of reference and it's going to take 36 years to complete the maneuver, so you switch FoR to the main body in the arena and suddenly a plate of spaghetti looks more organized and straight forward than your flight path :P

[@ryanpayne7707]

Your light show will arrive in...22 hours and 12 minutes.

[@TheFallenFaob]

I think the Honor Harrington series does a good job at talking about space combat from the use of bomb pumped x-ray laser torpedoes to the fact that it has the battles last many hours

[@quitreadingmyname7615]

I would thoroughly recommend the game Children of a Dead Earth, which uses only modern tech to show ultra realistic space combat, it should be a pretty interesting breakdown for the channel.

[@theblekedet6467]

More people need to know of CoaDE

[@hoojiwana]

Oh I am well aware of CoaDE - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@theblekedet6467 though, you're better off adding the expanded materials mod with that, it makes _Project Rho_ look like happily optimistic in that department.

[@DarthBiomech]

CoaDE would be fantastif if it wouldn't be designed so niche. It's more of a hardcore simulator rather than a game. Too many things you are forced to manage manually.

[@georgethompson1460]

I've heard it has issues with accurate laser performance, as some of the values used for the Lasers are actually an order or two lower than what has been currently achieved. (such as in laser quality).

[@reeceemms1643]

I do want to see a video on EMPs in space or EMP type weapons like the Ion cannon from Star wars, basically weapons designed not to do damage to a ship but to disable the ship

[@MatterBeamTSF]

Nuclear-pumped explosive flux generators are what you need.

[@hoojiwana]

Thats an interesting thing to cover, thanks for the suggestion! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@bevanfindlay]

EMPs might be an option for space combat, but you'd need something other than a nuke to cause it. The EMP from a nuke happens because of the interaction of the blast with the atmosphere - no atmosphere, no EMP.

[@MatterBeamTSF]

@@bevanfindlay A nuke can power an Explosive Flux Generator.

[@raideurng2508]

@@MatterBeamTSF If you're operating in space, your systems are already hardened and shielded so it's not nearly as viable as against terrestrial targets.

[@carlofthekey7288]

One really interesting weapon is actually a purely anti-nuke weapon. The Neutron Stampeder used by ZAFT in Gundam Seed Destiny would cause runaway fission reactions in any nuclear weapon caught in it's effective range causing them to detonate prematurely. It was such a great defensive tool as not only could it intercept nukes but could instantly destroy any ship carrying them. Meaning now ZAFT's enemy was now not only blocked from nuking them to death but also they couldn't even load nukes onto their ships without risking the destruction of their fleet.

[@TheTrueAdept]

... and if anyone used pure-fusion warheads, they'll be _very_ SOL.

[@vanguardhypersonic1134]

In fact, it makes no sense. Nuclear warheads are so exquisitely-designed that any high-speed impact that damages their internal structure will cause them to fail to detonate properly. In this respect, neutron beams are like any other weapon, and modern nuclear bombs are perfectly neutron reinforced, even more so in the space age

[@Kestrel-ws3cg]

@@TheTrueAdeptto be fair in that Gundam timeline fusion warheads aren't a thing for some reason and really when this thing was used it pretty much destroyed all the nukes that were made for the attack

[@saturnv2419]

My favorite is definitely the GENSIS in Gundam Seed. It essentially redirect the energy of a nuclear explosion into one direction, making it into a sort of Gamma-ray cannon. The animation also showed how sailors in the spaceship literally exploded because Gamma-ray vaporized all the liquid in their body.

[@darwinxavier3516]

The popping bodies were a nice surprise when I bought the dvds vs watching the censored Cartoon Network version.

[@samiamrg7]

Starcraft’s Yamato gun is similar in concept; being a nuclear blast concentrated into one direction.

[@Xeno-The-Wanderer]

I didn’t know it was a nuclear explosion but a microwave blast based on the Cyclops system the Atlantic federation employed which couldn’t be nuclear since they didn’t get a N Jammer Canceller yet to re enable their nuclear abilities. Though if GENESIS was augmented with nuclear I guess that would help being affective

[@victoriazero8869]

​@@Xeno-The-Wanderer Genesis is a gamma ray projector, essentially a flashlight powered by nuclear bomb. Although the physical effect are similar, gamma rays are 10^-12 meter short while microwaves are 10^-2. In other words, far more exciting in the worst way possible...

[@TheArklyte]

Nuclear weapons in science fiction - underpowered and underused. Unless the story ends by using one, which characters aim to avoid. Then it becomes supernova. Remember Davy Crockett? The one example of miniaturized warhead that is remembered as a joke due to range limitations of its recoilless rifle method of delivery? Nowadays any 150+mm ATGM, artillery shell, small cruise missile, MLRS munition or light drone can carry those(not that there is much difference left between light cruiser missile, attack drone and heavy ATGM with advent of loitering munitions concept, growing ranges and decreasing sizes). And deliver them with pinpoint precision over dozens of kilometers. Remember those dozen plus something ATGMs on attack helicopters like AH-64 or Mi-28? Now imagine all of them having a 0.01-10 kiloton warhead and 20km range on each of those. That's NOWADAYS tech. Something we can do even today. And in fiction despite however dire the situation is, we don't use it. And funnily enough, aliens don't use them either. They use clean ecofriendly solar powered planet busting beams that leave no radiation behind... Nuclear weapons are somehow scorned at even in setting with normalized hyperefficient ie magical nuclear propulsion. Remember episode of Stargate Atlantis where they can't defeat Wraith mothership juiced up on ZPM energy because its _biological_ armor "regenerates too fast"? Remember how a few episodes prior they've used oversized MIRV to destroy asuran homeworld(or at least "strictly justified military targets" on it)? Why wasn't said MIRV used in this situation again? You may ask "but what it'd do if more powerful sci-fi weapons are failing"? To which I'd answer - it'll give both the organic ship and everyone on board severe radiation poisoning. Then I'll just sit back and watch how said _organic_ ship turns into giant cancer cell every time it tries to regenerate its armor and hull Akira style:P

[@Bearmauls]

Stargate was rather inconsistent with their nukes. Although I'd argue that they didn't put sufficient work into their delivery systems. The missiles they used seemed so slow and would always get shot down on their way to the target. You'd think with all the other tech they've got a high-speed missile with a built-in shield and a 2nd stage designed for terminal evasive maneuvers would have been within their capabilities

[@BioniclesaurKing4t2]

My guess for the Stargate question is that they didn't just have another Horizon weapons platform sitting around ready to go at a moment's notice, as that was a particularly big decision to use it and probably needed at least a week of prep work. Also, they'd used it two seasons prior, not a few episodes, and likely thought they wouldn't need to again.

[@fnors2]

I don't think they are "underused" per-say. Because, really, if you have any form of space combat using missiles, it's most definitely all nukes (even if you just name them torpedoes, or whatever). Having traditional explosives in space missiles is wasteful, really. It simply weights too much. And you have to store, carry, and drag that weight around. Going nuclear means that for the same weight of explosives, you get a whole lot more missiles. Or that for the same firepower, you can greatly cut fuel costs of traveling with it. The scariest part of nukes is not the space combat part. Is that you can easily glass a planet with enough of them. It is probably the main deterrent to using nukes in most well written settings. For one, nuking a planet makes it inhospitable for invasion, it's not good for conquest. And if someone starts nuking planets, it's just a mutual destruction situation for civilized folks. It can become pretty hard for interstellar empire to intercept small ships whose sole purpose is to get to some inhabited planet of the enemy and blindly dump a few hundred nukes on it. Nukes kind of make suicide nuke-bombing everything a valid option on the table for whomever is losing. But yeah, I do agree that the "super-weapon" kind of nukes are not well understood by many authors. Most of the time it's due the writers ignorance, especially in TV series. And to be fair to the aliens, if you can use solar power to bust planets open, you don't need to bring nukes and bother with all the mass: there's always some star close by for when you wish to smite something out of existence.

[@SumBrennus]

Master Chief: "Permission to Disembark." Commodore: "To what purpose?" Master Chief: "To return the enemy's bomb." Master Chief... most epic troll ever.

[@maxpower3990]

Wasn’t Chief talking to Admiral Hood?

[@GuardianofKH]

Sir, request permission to leave the station. For what purpose, Master Chief? To give the Covenant back their bomb. few sec of thinking. Permission granted. also it was an antimaterbomb,

[@Terinije]

Still love seeing more Gundam footage. Hopefully we see breakdowns of various mobile suits (especially the iconic Zaku II) and ships in the future.

[@georgedang449]

That is the one aspect of Gundam that's not realistic. Just about everything else comes close to hard scifi, makes mainstream scifi like Battlestar Galactica look like space fantasy. In term of realism, it's on par with The Expanse. In other franchises that are considered hard scifi, ship's crew don space suits to survive hull breach before going into battle. In The Expanse and Gundam, they go a step further and decompress the bridge ahead of time to prevent additional damage from explosive decompression.

[@matteste]

Rather than the Zaku, I was thinking of maybe the Xi. Something about it just feels "heavy" or "real", feeling it would be perfect for a breakdown video.

[@Xeno-The-Wanderer]

Anything from Gundam would be nice, ships, colonies, super weapons, vehicles, doesn’t have to be mobile suits

[@TheNapster153]

​@@georgedang449 yeah, surprised the hell out of me the first time I saw Char's Counterattack and the scene where Bright and the bridge crew sunk underneath the exposed bridge. It's a neat trick that makes use of existing space without having to run around.

[@Whalewraith]

Galactica tanking that nuke was totally bad ass. I love that ship, the way it never got fixed between episodes just kind of bodged back together.

[@thedragondemands5186]

I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed, but I _do_ say, no more than 10 to 20 million killed - tops! Depending on the breaks...

[@CharliMorganMusic]

This is very accurate.

[@mikehateberg9533]

Mr. President! We cannot allow a mine shaft gap!

[@johannesmichaelalhaugthoma4215]

It would not be difficult mien Fur....I mean Mr. President.

[@highlander723]

Mr President you see if the pilot's good see I mean if he's really sharp.... He can barrel that baby in so low It's a site you ought to see sometime. A big plane like the 52 VAROOOOOMMM his jet exhaust frying chickens in the barnyard

[@thedragondemands5186]

@@highlander723 but has he got a chance?!

[@hshackleton678]

The callback to the Cheese-Slice door shows the growing expansion of the Spacedock Cinematic Universe (SCU) during Phase 1 of the Hoojidock Saga. Can't wait for there to be teases for yet more intense measurements in the future

[@ophidahlia1464]

I was hoping you'd mention Nuclear Relativistic Kill Vehicles, a totally plausible application where you simply detonate a regular nuclear bomb which you've accelerated to relativistic speeds. You still get all the extra energy from relativistic mass/momentum like your typical kinetic RKV, but the most horrifying part of the NRKV is that the radiation released is now *much* more energetic as it gets very heavily blue-shifted well into the extremely high gamma range (relative to the unfortunate target moving at non-relativistic speeds, who is going to have a *very* bad day in space). There's a great example of this type of weapon in Dennis Taylor's "We Are Bob" series of novels (I won't spoil it), it's probably one of the most shocking examples of fictional nuclear weaponry I've ever come across.

[@leerman22]

OR a nuclear salt water rocket, except it's a kinetic kill vehicle, or any type of missile you need to get somewhere fast. Maybe it's own force of acceleration can pump the fluid into the engine hard enough, or at least make it easier :P

[@builder396]

Damn, Doppler effect is fucking deadly.

[@ophidahlia1464]

@@builder396 oh yeah, ain't a bitch in the universe more merciless than the law of conservation of energy

[@minhkhangtran6948]

trying to calibrate the timing of that kind of weapon would be a goddamn B though, since even 0.0001 second mistiming still going to miss you by hundred of km

[@ophidahlia1464]

@@minhkhangtran6948 you'd need to know the exact location and velocity of the target at the moment you reached go time (or you'd need to be in their path and know exactly when they will arrive if they're travelling towards you, exact same situation). Designing a machine to activate that accurately is something we do all the time in lab work today, so the timing problem is really 100% a military intelligence problem (and you know what they say about military intelligence). OTOH, accuracy by volume is a battle-tested military strategy so it gets a lot easier if you just detonate a whole pile of bombs on the trajectory incrementally, only one has to connect and moving out of the way isn't really a thing at relativistic speeds

[@lordwisehammer]

There's a very good scene in Marko Kloos's Frontlines series where a physicist has to explain how relatively ineffective fission warheads are in a vacuum when the military keeps trying to tell them how many megatons they have hit the alien vessels with to no effect.

[@GandalfReagge]

Mr. Grayson, please refrain from breaking information quarantine protocols. Everybody else, go read those books before more spoilers appear.

[@michaelferrell7924]

Orion missiles 🤤

[@georgethompson1460]

Direct hit's wouldn't be ineffective though, it's slag the exterior and cause thermal shockwaves throught the hull.

[@wesleythomas7125]

Atomic Rockets says they'd need to get within a mile of the target. Cover it in ball-bearings and you've got something much more effective.

[@lordwisehammer]

@@georgethompson1460 They are against the aliens in this series, I've already spoiled too much of this series by even mentioning that it has aliens. I forgot how late they turn up in the first novel.

[@crgkevin6542]

Wow, nuclear explosively formed projectiles. This is a new and terrifying concept to me…

[@RaderizDorret]

I'd love to see those show up in HFY stories. After all, how are we going to keep the xenos in check without involving our uncanny ability to find newer and newer ways to yeet rocks at our enemies?

[@GLynham]

Now I'm wondering if depleted uranium would work, if only for the style points.

[@RaderizDorret]

@@GLynham Not really. "depleted" uranium is uranium that has much lower than normal amounts of U-235. If you were to try to make a nuclear EFP with depleted uranium, you'll just get a fission reaction.

[@josephburchanowski4636]

@@RaderizDorret That depends on whether neutrons actually reach the depleted uranium. If the filler material absorbs the neutrons, you shouldn't have to worry about the uranium undergoing fission.

[@leerman22]

@@josephburchanowski4636 With the space constraints and neutron speed, neutron shielding won't make much difference. I doubt a U238 penetrator will be inconvenient regardless since it's not a self-sustaining reaction anyways, plus fission product contaminants add insult to injury.

[@RogueBipolarDemon]

"We see you Honorverse Fans" this made me exceptionally happy as the series is not as popular as I feel it should be.

[@CrimsonTemplar2]

Same! It was a nice shout-out.

[@Beltalowda55]

Same here. I was thinking about that series at the beginning of the video and it made me smile when I saw the reference. An excellent series by David Weber if anyone is looking for a good series to read. 📖

[@hoojiwana]

Y'all were begging for the shoutout in the missiles video, I think if it wasn't mentioned alongside the bomb-pumped laser the comments would be a warzone lol - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@stamfordly6463]

@@hoojiwana Thank you, I think it had to be mentioned although it's a very different setting from typical visual medium SF and thus I think it sort of dodges the problems with overpowered weapons you mention in closing. If you haven't got to fit your combatants in the same screen then you can have them lobbing far more exotic and destructive things at one another.

[@Urzaknight]

It's a good series I love it

[@radastir]

David Weber brought the concept of the bomb-pumped laser to perfection in his Honorverse and his work in the Starfire Games

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

Most space combat in the Honor Harrington series hinged on the development new ways and innovation in the 'laser head' torpedo. The warhead is a bomb pumped x-ray laser and while we do see some innovation into the lasing rods and gravitic lensing, most of the development is in range, with engagements going from 9 million kilometers to 90 million kilometers. And that's not even a simple task, with in universe acknowledgement of the lightspeed lag and sensor inefficiency.

[@Gomjibar]

I was just about to say something similar and you beat me to it :)

[@wolfpreist]

not only that, but in the Honor Verse, Laser heads were still fairly new. IIRC later on they talk about how the Solarian League Navy still thought Nukes were the go too ship killer. Of Course, we all know what happened to the SLN

[@Sephiroth144]

@@wolfpreist They were able to put the Neobarbs in their place and brought order to the regions - SLNN

[@Sephiroth144]

Of course, the actual range of the BPXRL was pretty limited throughout- it was the range of the delivery system (i.e., the missiles) that changed significantly, (as well as the variety of delivery system delivery systems, such as the LACs and Pods).

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

@@Sephiroth144 I just started book 12. So far the SLN is full of themselves. I'm ready all the books (anthologies, Crown I'd Slaves and Shadow of Saganami) in chronological order. Even the former Peep's think the SLN tech is something like 50 years out of date. Hell, even Erhowan holds a slight tech edge. The SLN only wins in number of hulls.

[@AdvocatusThei]

"We see you Honorverse fans." I was hoping you'd mention Honorverse. In my opinion it is one of the best thought-out hard military sci-fi out there, and the nuke pumped laser is one example. Didn't know that it was something actually considered by the US military though.

[@ruddygreat4914]

I'm kinda surprised that you mentioned the Orion drive getting added to starsector, but went right over the bomb-pumped laser missiles! Either way, love to see that the game is getting some love from this channel!

[@ajzebadua]

Never have I been soo glad to see so much footage from Gundam (mostly SEED from the looks of it) in a Spacedock video.

[@Kestrel-ws3cg]

SEED probably has the most liberal use of nukes in Gundam, while UC has moments where nukes make a big impact, in SEED the crazy Earth faction was more than happy to nuke the space faction into oblivion.

[@ajzebadua]

@@Kestrel-ws3cg true, Earth really is the worst. That's why I loved the idea of the Orb Union trying to bring about peace between the plants and Earth. Also golden Gundam.

[@darranhirose8153]

Ty for the Honorverse mention. Not that it's a hard sci fi series, but, bomb pumped xray lasers are... Just a magnificent take on conventional guided missiles.

[@Sephiroth144]

Honestly, its a decently hard sci-fi series; sure, makes some leaps, but not too many. (I'd say its roughly as hard as The Expanse, just with a longer gap in between.)

[@TheAchilles26]

@@Sephiroth144, impeller drive and "gravitic sensors are FTL" makes it less hard than The Expanse

[@alexandermackie7621]

@@TheAchilles26 I was under the impression that it wasn't FTL, but just at the speed of light? That, and I was just hyped when they came out about 6 years ago proving that gravity does move in waves like was theorized for the books.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@alexandermackie7621, Gravitic sensors are VERY EXPLICITLY FTL in the books. It's why ships have real time data on ships with active impeller drive, and Honor literally invents an FTL Morse code communication system

[@alexandermackie7621]

@@TheAchilles26 I'll have to re-check the earlier books, been re-listening to them all on audible.

[@ChrisPrice12]

I think I'd go for the laser. And Gundam SEED provides a very good design for it, that you used a clip of in the video.

[@seldoon_nemar]

Rad concerns were definetly a concern when designing the battlestars. Galactica has it's water around the outside of the ship as additional shielding against radiation.

[@hellacoorinna9995]

The only way to take out a battlestar, is to crack it's main Taiko-percussion core.

[@striker8961]

. . . So they irradiate their water….

[@seldoon_nemar]

@@striker8961 water won't soak up rads like that, it would have to be contaminated

[@striker8961]

@@seldoon_nemarif you want to drink that go ahead mate.

[@seldoon_nemar]

@@striker8961 you have no idea how radiation and contamination work. It's just acting as a shielding mass, it's not becoming radiative itself. You'll ingest more radiation from a banana 🍌

[@chrisanderson2487]

Bonus points for mentioning project Excalibur and project Casaba Howitzer

[@MatterBeamTSF]

It's clear Hoojiwana did their reading...

[@banebeard]

"SOLOMON, I HAVE RETURNED!!!!" Probably the worst use of a nuke in anime or sci-fi

[@Dragore94123]

love how you guys give suggestions for our own worlds. i have given a lot of these subjects deep thoughts to use in my own stories. thank you guys so much for these dives into weapons and such in science fiction. keep up the awesome work guys.

[@hoojiwana]

Spacedocks success allowed for the creation of The Sojourn, I think its fitting for it to "return the favour" so to speak and inspire people for their own creations! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@dark_fire_ice]

Actually, in the Empire of Man series (by John Ringo and David Weber), nuclear weapons are the standard long range weapons, rather than first strike or last resort

[@sethgilcrist8088]

Oh God. I know I've read that series (I love John Ringo and Weber is good to) But for the life of me I can't remember which one that is. It's not the one with the "spoiled" prince ( March up country, match to the sea, March to the stars and I could have sworn there was one more) is it? I'm positive it's not the series where the moon is really a spaceship. It's it the one with the book called the Shiva option with the big race trying to eat the universe? ( I love that series I keep forgetting it's name and keep asking then forget when people tell me which one it is)

[@icdong5031]

@@sethgilcrist8088 Empire of Man is the one with the moon as a spaceship. The other one, with the Shiva Option, I don't know the name of the series, but it has four books: Crusade, in Death Ground, The Shiva Option and Insurrection.

[@dark_fire_ice]

@@sethgilcrist8088 the last book written in the series is We Few. And there's been a bit of confusion as to what coming next; orginally it was a prequel series, about Miranda, then a sequel book about Roger

[@sethgilcrist8088]

Thanks guys.

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@icdong5031 Empire of Man is the prince Rodger Series (it's what his mother is Empress of).

[@Dysiode]

Reeeeeally interesting look at the practical uses of nukes in space! I think there's another aspect that people conveniently leave out of fiction (because it's simply almost never exciting) and that's the sheer distance anything needs to travel in the first place. David Weber in the Honor Harrington books did a really nice job of what actual combat in space would look like!

[@user-bw6jg4ej2m]

One thing I wanna cherry pick is that I'm highly skeptical that a neutron bomb would be effective up to "dozens to hundreds of kilometres". Yes there's no atmosphere in space to absorb or scatter the neutrons, but the inverse square law still applies to them, so the absorbed dose of neutron radiation will quickly drop as you get further from the explosion. But I don't mind if someone provides a rough calculation that proves Spacedock right. Also, high-energy neutrons are really nasty as they can "activate" different materials (mostly metals) so that they in turn become temporarily radioactive. So if the initial blast doesn't expose the crew to a lethal dose of radiation, their now-radioactive ship might still do it over time. Also also, neutrons are much better at penetrating high-density materials (again, metals) that shield from the usual gamma-rays well. Luckily though, there are lightweight materials for dedicated neutron protection, like paraffin.

[@marrqi7wini54]

Space is already radioactive and all the neutrons will scatter. Plus a quick quarantine for a few weeks will render the material safe for use.

[@romaliop]

I read that even a small conventional nuclear device (like 10kt yield) can produce a lethal amount of neutron radiation to a 0.5-1 km radius, and that's with like only 10% of the energy converted to neutrons and in atmosphere. So if we remove the atmosphere from the equation (at least beyond the first 0.5-1km) and assume a true neutron bomb with most of the energy going converted to neutrons (for example 80%), even with the inverse square law, a neutron bomb equivalent to the Tsar Bomba (~50Mt, weighing 27 metric tons), would have a lethal radius of like 20-40km. This is probably a low estimate due to the extremely dubious calculation method, so I think you could at least theoretically build a neutron bomb with a radius of dozens if not a few hundreds of kilometers without it becoming too massive for space ship context. However anything beyond that radius would probably be comically or at least inconveniently large (like would it really be easier to deliver a 10000 ton bomb into 1000km radius of a ship than getting a 100 ton bomb into 100km radius).

[@user-bw6jg4ej2m]

@@romaliop I did a bit of reading and you could be right. Usually the problem is that the atmosphere limits neutrons' range by absorbing and scattering them. So there's just no point in increasing the yield of a neutron bomb - the neutron radiation radius hardly changes inside the atmosphere, while the thermal and shockwave radii exceed it and defeat the whole purpose of a neutron bomb. But in space you can detonate as large of a neutron bomb as you'd like and deliver larger quantity of neutrons over greater distances. Tho, the wiki says 30-45% output instead of 80%. Still, tho, military spaceships could have thick but lightweight paraffin shielding againt neutrons, greatly reducing the effective blast radius.

[@romaliop]

@@user-bw6jg4ej2m Yeah, the 80% was just something I made up for sci-fi context, and frankly it's not that crucial compared to 45% for the size/yield ratio of a neutron bomb anyway. Didn't consider shielding, though, so you're probably right that for especially larger ships it would probably be pretty easy to protect the crew. But maybe the bombs could be used against a swarm of smaller targets kinda like they were envisioned to be used against groups of ground vehicles in the real world too.

[@Clearwater_WT]

I am literally loading up Starsector while watching this video. Good mention there, I think it is a wonderful game that deserves wider recognition - and your channel too, of course! Keep up the good work!

[@SweetPotatoDingo]

I'm glad that the most nuclear trigger happy anime, Gundam Seed, got some love. Especially in the first season they love using nuclear weapons of all kinds; from regular missiles, to nuclear powered gamma ray lasers, to improvised bombs made of nuclear powered mechs

[@darwinxavier3516]

Blue Cosmos was so nuke-happy that the PLANTs had to invent a device that crippled all neutron fission.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

Weird with how in the original Gundam using nukes made both sides realized that either they stopped using them or they would both die.

[@earnestbrown6524]

@@darwinxavier3516 And then they invented a device to cancel the crippling. So then Blue Cosmos could use nukes again. So the PLANTs also made a device the would destroy the nukes before they reached their targets.

[@left4deadian]

Those space colonies in gundam seed just can't catch a break, first a nuke destroyed one and then in the second season a giant laser sliced most of it killing hundreds of thousands.

[@tickticktickBOOOOM]

Given point defense, I think the stand off distance advantage of bomb pumped laser warheads will make them the weapon of choice in the future. If the enemy's armor proves too tough, you can follow up with EFP warheads once their interception ability has been reduced.

[@relikt582]

Armor in space? Lol

[@UGNAvalon]

@RELIKT - Space Engineers How else would you survive micrometeors? :P

[@relikt582]

@@UGNAvalon Armor that can withstand micrometeors is not quite on the same calibre as something that can survive the fiction-beam

[@VallornDeathblade]

While lasers are neat, may I introduce you to bomb pumped electron beams? The receiving end of a highly relatavistic electron beam is going to have some serious damage control to do.

[@tickticktickBOOOOM]

@@relikt582 You're gonna need thick armor just for radiation, if the ship is spending any significant time outside a magnetosphere.

[@SwiftGundam]

Opening up with the Bloody Valentine Incident of Gundam SEED. Certainly got me hooked. Is it any wonder why ZAFT made a device that rendered nuclear fission impossible.

[@cmdraftbrn]

then turn around and make a device that makes it possible. only to make a nuclear power doomsday laser.

[@SwiftGundam]

@@cmdraftbrn Well, yeah, they made the jammer so they wouldn't get nuked but it doesn't mean they don't wanna use nukes themselves.

[@Gelb33]

The Neutron Jammer is a clear example of a faulty strategic game changer. Zaft deployed it in a fit of anger causing a worldwide energy crisis, killing untold millions, and jamming laser-based communications all under the excuse of preventing a nuclear war when instead they could've just deployed a network of NJs around their colonies and bases thus preventing another nuke strike thus avoid two third of the planet wanting to kill them.

[@SwiftGundam]

​@@Gelb33 Well, can you blame them for being angry? The Earth Alliance decided to fire nukes immediately after the war started on civilian targets. Naturally the PLANTs would want to pay them back, especially the pro-war faction who got more backing after that. Rational thinking moved to the passenger seat. Little correction: laser based communication are unaffected by N-Jammers.

[@shoootme]

​@@SwiftGundam so how's the blue and pure world getting on? looks a little green and glowing to me.

[@ClassicMagicMan]

The effectiveness of an engine as a drive is proportional to its effectiveness as a bomb. Fly safe.

[@patgarci]

Love seeing the gundam footages!!!! Any chance we can see a breakdown of white base or argama or archangel ????????

[@SirBork]

Hey I played Battlezone 2 and when I opened the game I got really “really” confused when I heard your intro music, took me a minute to realize, definitely the most unique game Iv ever played.

[@derekp2674]

I hope you enjoyed 'BZ2'. If have also played Battlezone 1, do you have a favourite out of the two?

[@MatterBeamTSF]

Thanks for covering the less well known 'progression' of nuclear weapons technology beyond simple spherical explosions.

[@hoojiwana]

It was my pleasure! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@raideurng2508]

Shoutout to Project Rho and their endless pages of sci-fi goodies just like this.

[@GunRunner106]

yah so if ya were to actually use nuclear missiles in space you would want them to like burrow first into the target as deep as possible like a penetrator with some of the specialists shells for tanks we have now a days before essentially dropping the nuke into the ship and then blowing it up which would be way more devastating then having it explode onto the hull...

[@keenanbrowne3307]

That’s exactly what I kept expecting for the video to say that would absolutely annihilate the target completely I just hope space wars stay in Syfy because could you imagine America and China go to war over the moon or mars or something like for real whilst in space

[@DrakeAurum]

Yeah, but if you can deliver a weapon that manages to drill into an enemy ship's hull, you're probably not going to need a nuclear device to finish them off at that point.

[@entropy11]

The trick is getting such a delicate device as a nuclear warhead through the hull. Laser drill?

[@darkbooger]

@@DrakeAurum Yeah, even a few pebbles if given the opportunity and right velocity can eliminate a ship and its crew. A nuke would only be required if you needed to completely destroy a ship rather than just poking a few holes in the right places.

[@dunmermage]

@@entropy11 If you have a laser powerful enough that can drill a hole into a warship hull, you don't really need a nuke.

[@litesaber54yi3]

Please please please start posting descriptions of the shows u are using for the exmples! There are some scenes of shows I've never seen before. But props to you for using B5 as an example!

[@TimberWolf99]

Gundam SEED Destiny being used for the opening clips gave me an endorphin rush.

[@ArmoredNeko]

I like the Macross way of doing it: they don't always use nukes but the moment they smell something funny then all bets are off and nukes were handed to pilots like sweet rolls. Each aerospace craft gets 4 nukes going out of hanger and that's like their smallest space combat unit. Pound for pound nukes pack a lot more punches over regular explosives so even if you are just using their explosive force it's a great way to give your small combat units some vicious bite.

[@exvaran]

I was fully prepared for a dunking of how Gundam 0083 did its nuke scene

[@Fireheart318]

As you were describing the various ways space nukes differed from atmospheric ones, I started thinking of ways to get around that. It warms my crazy little heart that every single one of those ideas has been thoroughly detailed here.

[@Vespuchian]

Leave it to classic UC-era Gundam to once again have one of the most reasonable depictions of space combat. Makes you realize how _powerful_ the warheads used in _UC0083: Stardust Memory_ were (and why the Gundam that fired them needed a shield so chonky).

[@henryfleischer404]

I should really watch some more Gundam. Got any recommendations for what to watch next? I've only watched the original so far.

[@tylerbutcher2744]

@@henryfleischer404 0083 stardust memory, the 08th MS team, and 0080 war in the pocket. That’s the gorgeously animated UC renaissance for ya

[@Vespuchian]

@@henryfleischer404 Tyler has the short list of the good UC series, although since you've seen the original it's well worth your time picking up the _Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin_ series. Classic designs coupled with modern animation makes for a jaw-dropping spectacle as you get to witness the rise of Zeon and the start of the One Year War from the perspective of Casval Deikun/Char Aznabal. For NON-UC Gundam you can't go wrong with _Turn-A Gundam, Gundam Wing,_ or the first season of _Gundam 00_ (I thought the second season was pretty mediocre compared to the first and can be skipped). _Reconguista in G_ is also a strong pick, and a Tomino production, just be aware it's badly rushed in the second half, Sunrise totally shafted Tomino out of a second season. The new _Witch From Mercury_ looks to be a strong showing, not a bad place to jump in actually.

[@henryfleischer404]

@@Vespuchian Got any recommendations for how/where to watch these? Most of them are not on Crunchyroll.

[@darwinxavier3516]

@@henryfleischer404 kissanime is what I use. It's a standard pop up ridden website that'll try to get you to install bullshit like some cesspool porn site. But if you know how to navigate that minefield and can tolerate the pop ups, it'll have what you want. On top of 0083, 08th MS, 0080, Wing, my personal recommendations are SEED, Destiny(but only for the great music and mechs cuz story is shit), Gundam X, Unicorn, Thunderbolt, and Iron Blooded Orphans.

[@hudsonball4702]

Very pleased to see you show Gundam Seed/Destiny clips in these reels.

[@WritingFighter]

In the sci-fi setting I was developing on and off, the faction of Humanity from earth used "Nuclear Railguns"; the weapon used a railgun as the delivery system for a shell encasing a shaped charge nuclear weapon. The outer shell would slam into the target ship, break apart and deform, overloading shield and spearing into armor while protecting the shaped charge. At this point, most ships would take some damage depending on the amount of shielding material, type of shield, and size of the ship, but no worse than most weapon batteries. Then the nuclear shaped charge, having breached the _inside of the hull_ *then* detonates. So all that atmospheric, catastrophic explosive goodness is concentrated inside the enemy vessel. Despite the catastrophic damage they're capable of, and being mounted on all capital and some escort class vessels, the "nuclear railgun" weapon system is out-ranged 2, even 3 times over by a number of alien factions (while the weapon can theoretically hit targets at these distances, this assumes an impossibly optimal scenario if the target is drifting at a fixed, slow constant relative to attacking ship). At those distances, it's possible (though difficult) to gun down the warhead, though it's easier to just adjust something in a heading and it's likely to miss. And despite the shell coming with a limited (and crumbling) correctional burst of thrust, the nature of the railgun also fixes the weapons to the hull, requiring a ship equipped with one to directly face it's target. So it has advantages and disadvantages. Humanity is the only race using projectile-based weaponry in all facets of combat, particularly munitions in it's void navy.

[@techticianlarsproductions6180]

Starting with a clip from SEED. Gotta give even more points.

[@SargeRho]

One nuclear weapon I've recently become fond of, is the Nuclear-pumped ultra-relativistic electron beam. It uses a nuke to drive a single-use electron accelerator, which pumps out an electron beam moving at 99.9999....% of the speed of light. Relativistic effects keep these focused for a very long distance, potentially in the AU-range, so one could slap a target clean across the solar system.

[@davidbuckley2435]

Ooft. And there would be no dodging it either since the moment you saw them firing, the beam would be seconds away from hitting

[@derekp2674]

How does that idea deal with the deflection of the electrons by any magnetic fields they would encounter?

[@SargeRho]

@@derekp2674 That's where relativistic shenanigans come in again. As this beam would have an absurd amount of energy, it would also take an absurdly strong field to deflect it.

[@SargeRho]

@@davidbuckley2435 Not only that, if you somehow managed to deflect the beam, your electron beam problem suddenly becomes an x-ray beam problem.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

Weaponized one use CERN.

[@MysteriousMose]

great to see the bomb-pumped laser make an appearance! I'd be curious to see your opinion on Minovsky particles. Do you think such reactors would lead to a battlespace like that seen in the Gundam franchise or something very different?

[@Poctyk]

They turn off electronics or something?

[@MysteriousMose]

@@Poctyk They're a byproduct of Gundam's fusion reactors that interfere with any mid-long-range sensors and remote control.

[@onepangaean3018]

Minovsky particles are fictional so not hard sci fi

[@philrm99]

Perfect discussion.

[@nitehawk86]

"Don't worry, its a shaped charge." "What sort of shape?" "Spherical!"

[@tedarcher9120]

Finally, you mentioned Casaba howitzers!

[@Asherow]

The Honirverse fans comment made me think, has Spacedock done any Honorverse videos? It seems like it's mostly movies, shows, and video games so maybe not, but maybe I just can't remember other examples of hand. Either way, laughed at the shout out. Awesome series and definitely recommend to anyone who hasn't read them. (And the Dahak and Safehold series)

[@battleoid2411]

If you like weber and fantasy, his wargod series is also really good

[@Sephiroth144]

The lack of visuals would be a bit of an issue...

[@Asherow]

There've been some comics and fan art. At one point a game was in development, and a mobile game was released but I don't remember much about that one. But yeah probably not much to pull from the Honorverse alone.

[@jackwalters5506]

An issue with using the bomb-laser is that even a relatively thin coating of a material which is effective at distributing heat and/or reflecting the wavelength of the laser will make the weapon almost useless. Most likely in future warfare is that lasers will be relegated to point defence weapons, since it is fairly easy to counter them with passive defenses

[@Michael-bn1oi]

Distributing heat is *exceedingly* difficult in space, which goes a long way to mitigating that concern.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@Michael-bn1oi, the sheer level of radiation shielding needed for simply surviving interplanetary flight is a pretty potent defense against lasers

[@chiechie9090]

I agree. They will be great for pushing KE projectiles with sublimate thrust or cooking drone sensors/radiators, but that's about it. The effective time cost to use the nuke to propel a plasma instead of just send over photons isn't terribly significant within the distances that a laser can be effective. Sure, photons are relativistically instant, but 4-8 seconds to get out of the way of a 1km diameter wall of high-speed plasma shot from 2000kms might as well be too.

[@Lyze]

I've known about the orion drive for decades, I only just found out about Casaba Howitzers a couple weeks ago. I remember that the game Ogre has shaped charge nuclear warheads but didn't know anyone developed the idea in RL.

[@SemiStableUniverse]

Excellent analysis of how nuclear weapons are so powerful when interacting with matter (like atmosphere or armor) to cause lots of damage. The tactics of nukes in space may be very counterintuitive in the future, or they may even become obsolete!

[@aragonnetje]

One question, what would happen if a nuclear device were detonated inside the pressurized section of a ship or station? It seems like that would do a lot more damage, at least locally, due to the presence of a shock wave through much of the ship

[@TheAchilles26]

The ship would almost certainly be annihilated

[@JcBravo8]

Dude it’s a nuke. Think Hiroshima and remember a half ton of tnt is a Very Big Bomb. And nukes are stupidly big bombs.

[@aragonnetje]

@@JcBravo8 Please actually watch the video before posting snarky comments

[@lordwisehammer]

It would be very much the same as in a planetary atmosphere as the gases would expand just as rapidly, even if the warhead created a breach in the hull in order to explode in side it would not be enough to mitigate the massive pressure wave. Unless you're dealing with a super strong sci fi material, the end result of either an internal or external direct hit would be effectively the same though.

[@cdgonepotatoes4219]

I don't think there would be enough air on the ship for it to make any significant change, or unless we're talking high sci-fi, a material solid enough to make armour strong enough to cause significant change in the equation. The nuke would vaporize a section of the ship, a gaping hole where whatever air which didn't ionize will vent through. If the ship has bulkheads, and if it's big enough for the entire ship to be larger than the nuke's blast radius somehow, survivors could still remain if the Gs imparted on the ship by the nuke aren't enough to turn them to paste, maybe there would be a few more leaky airlocks with the nuke blowing inside. Either way, a point blank nuke (including proximity hits, distance considered varying with the size of the warhead) is gonna turn all but the most ridiculous sci-fi ships into scrap.

[@grahamparton1492]

Lots of Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock game scenes! Gorgeous!

[@dragonturtle2703]

That sounds awesome. Why don’t we see this happen more often in sci-fi.

[@a2rgaming863]

Rule of Cool. Fission is fun. Fusion is amazing. But Matter Anti-Matter bombs are were the vast majority of sci-fi writers are at. That and artificial black holes.

[@tedarcher9120]

Because writers are lazy and just default to lasers or space missiles that spark on impact and reduce shield numbers

[@kamilpotato3764]

Nothing beats NOVA bomb from Halo Onyx :)

[@dragonturtle2703]

@@a2rgaming863 no, I mean the more realistic effects. A nuclear shaped charge, people will probably know what that is, or figure it out with a quick google search. And the normal nuke on a ship, that sounds visually spectacular. Why does everyone just do atmospheric explosion in space?

[@lamhuynh7201]

@@dragonturtle2703 propably because unless you understand nuclear physic, all you know about anything “nuclear” is big explosion go boom instead of as explained by the video beginning.

[@temporal-dilation-boi]

im surprised that the casaba-howitzer is such an obscure concept. its cool as hell so youd think itd be much more known. good video m8, there doesnt really seem to be many videos about nuclear shaped charges

[@whyjnot420]

Nice to see some LotGH here. That series does not get nearly enough love. (That would be Legend of the Galactic Heroes and its goddamned epic fleet battles.)

[@JJAB91]

Yang best boy

[@CrimsonTemplar2]

Great video! Nice to see some of the more creative applications of nuclear weapons being highlighted.

[@ditzydoo4378]

Yeah, I remember when Neutron bombs were first proposed for use by the US. That was a truly scary time. Most thinking was, "We can detonate the devise at mid-range altitude and kill our opponents without causing the widespread nuclear contamination problems a surface blast has". They were so casual in talking about wide-spread genocide.

[@summitap1]

Nah. Neutron bombardment sufficient to kill humans causes neutron activation of materials like buildings, vehicles, roads, soils, everything, making them radioactive. Neutron bombs were mean to kill armor and electronics that could be shielded from blast.

[@NanoBurger]

@@summitap1 Even so, neutron-induced gamma activity is a relatively short-term problem. Days to weeks and the radiation level would be close to the background.

[@MrNicoJac]

@@summitap1 Neutron bombs were not designed to kill armor and shielded electronics, but the humans operating them ;) (small distinction, yet significant) You are of course totally right that the resulting surface material activation does leave the object unusable by a potential follow-up crew. In case you haven't watched it yet, I _highly_ recommend the video The Ultimate Guide To Nuclear Weapons by HypoHystericalHistory!

[@midgetydeath]

Nukes in space are done well in BattleTech. Tactically handy weapons against large numbers of small threats, striking at enemy sensors, and missiles designed to activate on contact with an enemy ship. Primarily, though, was their past use of carpet nuking entire planets.

[@gummihu]

As a Honorverse fan I feel seen.

[@hoojiwana]

👁👁

[@seranonable]

I like the concept of using it to screen incoming weapons fire, that's really cool

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

Nuclear EFPs? Sounds fascinating.

[@whyjnot420]

Those Plowshare explosions, while not really applicable to the main point of this video, are always damned amazing to watch.

[@curiouskarl5485]

unrelated, but i was wondering if you plan to do a video on the NCC-1701 as seen in Strange New Worlds -- imo it is by far the most gorgeous version of the Enterprise ever put to screen, and it would be really cool to see Spacedock do a side-by-side comparison with the version from the original series

[@stephen-ng]

I like your old Star Wars / Star Trek / nuBSG information vids. You got yourself a new subby. People forget that if a Borg vessel (or any ship with a forcefield) can't survive a collision with an asteroid, they won't survive being bombarded by something similar at a great velocity (which is precisely what small arms, cannonfire, and ballistic missiles/torpedoes are). Nukes are essentially 'fire bombs' that incinerate things with a great release of energy. We have green-nukes (called FAEs or fuel-air explosives) - the concept to do damage is the same (great amount of thermal energy release). Warfare in the future will be much, much different from what we can imagine now. I look forward to it....

[@admiralfluffy42]

Minor correction. The bomb that Chief returned to the covenant was an antimatter charge, not Nuclear. Great video though!

[@tTaseric]

True, but that cutscene looks prettier than the ones where he actually delivers a nuke

[@Eodasa05]

Technically an antimatter weapon is a nuclear weapon it just using a matter antimatter reaction instead of a fission or fusion reaction

[@TheBassManBoy]

2:26 Love the nod to the "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" music video. Man that video was bonkers.

[@andreasmuller4666]

Or you go Honorverse where they moved from contact nukes to laser heads over the course of the story and started to yet those at each other first in dozens and later on thousands sized volleys. Pod-nought anyone?

[@TheAchilles26]

They literally STARTED with laser warheads

[@andreasmuller4666]

@@TheAchilles26 At the start they still had a loadout mix and moved towards pure laser head/pen aid loads later on.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@andreasmuller4666, not the Manties or the Peeps. They literally laughed at how adorably primitive the Grayson and Masada use of contact nukes was in comparison

[@TheAchilles26]

@@andreasmuller4666, you might be confusing the energy torpedoes on the first Fearless for contact nukes

[@andreasmuller4666]

@@TheAchilles26 No I´m not. Rafe got the hi that set up the killing blow on the Q-ship by sneaking a contact nuke in at the last portion of the fight. He was previously counting his missle reserves and noting that he ran out of laser heads and only had pen aids and contact nukes left for the few missles that were left over due the smaller magazines they had, thx to the grav lance and torpedo refit.

[@TheOneWayDown]

I've been putting together a piece of sci-fi that's kind of a grounded military space opera in the vein of Mass Effect. One race I came up with is a twist on your standard lizard aliens, basically their ancestors wiped themselves out in a nuclear war and now their descendents worship the ancestors who genetically engineered them to be capable of surviving a barren, radioactive world. Because of this history, they hold a great reverence for nuclear weapons, believing them to be holy, the spears of the gods. And one of their favorite weapons are long range missiles tipped with casaba howitzer warheads that are often deliberately programmed to detonate just outside of effective PDC range, to devastating effect. This video gives me some more good ideas

[@timetraveller6643]

What effect do the neutrons from a neutron bomb have on enemy fissile material? will the neutrons cause the enemy's fuel to pre-detonate? partially detonate? does the effected material become useless?

[@hoojiwana]

I have no idea but its an interesting question! I know they can cause havoc in electrical systems and transmute materials through neutron activation, so it may be possible? - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@timetraveller6643]

@@hoojiwana I was thinking maybe one of the original purposes was to render enemy plutonium incapable of achieving criticality when detonated. I know the speed of the neutrons has something important to do with it. too fast and they pass through without partially reacting the mass.

[@derekp2674]

If the enemy have such sensitive fuel, I expect they will keep it inside neutron shielding materials to protect themselves from stray free neutrons, eg from cosmic rays.

[@NanoBurger]

One of the things we had to plan for as nuclear target analysts is pre-detonation where a device is launched through another nuclear detonation. The free neutrons would detonate the second bomb before it got to the target.

[@sookendestroy1]

Genuinely a great dive into the concept good job

[@hoojiwana]

Thanks! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@samwill7259]

A lot of times nukes end up being some of the LOWER YIELD and LESS dangerous armaments in a sci fi setting. Gives a real sense of scale when humanity can now toss around what used to be considered WMDs as if they were .45 millimeter rounds out a cheap handgun

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

The Federation, space hippie socialists vegans pacifists, casually having torpedoes more powerful than the Tsar bomb as main armament. That is, when it isn't jacked up to crack a moon.

[@templarw20]

Ah, I see someone has read David Weber’s sci-fi…

[@derekp2674]

".45 millimetre" would be a really small calibre. I assume you meant .45 inch as in.45 ACP (aka 11.43×23mm in metric).

[@samwill7259]

@@derekp2674 Probably, I know literally nothing about guns.

[@thespyhatofficial]

I had a concept in a sci-fi setting that used a bow-mounted gauss cannon with nuclear warhead sabot ammunition that punched into the ship before detonating the payload, effectively using the ship's own atmosphere to generate a shockwave. Idk how much scientific basis is behind it, but thought I'd share.

[@Freesorin837]

So the nuke going off in low orbit in Modern Warfare 2 and the blast wave taking out the ISS several hundred kilometers away was BS?

[@Т1000-м1и]

Checked out of curiosity, discovered a dream channel

[@bandiras2]

r/HFY making notes. WRITE THAT DOWN!!! WRITE THAT DOWN!!!

[@Rasc0117]

You guys love teasing us with clips of mechas. When are we gonna get a video on mechs?

[@Coolman13355]

I look forward to the Babylon 5 in this episode.

[@hoojiwana]

We got it in there! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@Coolman13355]

@@hoojiwana The Battlestar Galactica that I also assume is in there should be fun too.

[@Halotaku]

4:23 I believe I speak for all Honorverse fans by thanking you for that shout-out.

[@AnythingMachine]

Casaba howitzer or X ray bomb pumped laser or don't bother

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

Agreed. There's just nothing that can match erasing an entire vessel from the face of the universe with a focused beam of nuclear hellfire

[@GhostEye31]

A great non-sci fi example of an EFP was in Terminal List when the main character tried using one to try and assassinate someone who was in an armoured vehicle. Nearly worked too.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

Problem: only a fraction of a conventional nuke energy will ever hit spaceship, unless detonated extremely close. While the EMP might be fatal for whole fleets, it still isn't as satisfying as erasing an enemy warship in nuclear fire Solution: focus the nuclear explosion in the form of a pumped laser or tungsten plasma, basically turning nukes in anti-spaceships HEAT warheads

[@MatterBeamTSF]

All those advanced nuclear weapons are actually very inefficient. The Casaba Howitzer of bomb-pumped x-ray laser only deliver a few percent of the nuke's energy to the target... but nuclear bombs are so powerful that only a small percentage of their energy is enough to obliterate most things.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

@@MatterBeamTSF IIRC, the Casaba Howitzer is theorised to be able to reach a 50% efficiency, which would be absolutely insane.

[@user-bw6jg4ej2m]

Most likely no EMP in deep space, as on Earth it's mainly generated when gamma rays hit the atmosphere.

[@MatterBeamTSF]

@@user-bw6jg4ej2m You can artificially create an EMP out of a nuclear blast by using its energy to power an explosive flux generator.

[@denhanced5278]

Props for "The Darkness" cut. Your content is tight!

[@Omega_1111]

4:24 kind of surprised to see a Honor Harrington mention in a youtube video, not surprised it was this channel even after having only watched 4 videos and finding it today

[@sam23696]

There was a sci-fi series I read once that used a form or highly advanced directed nuclear weapons. Basically explained as like a shaped charge, but nuclear, achieveing this using force fields and molecular engineering sci-fi tech along those lines. Rather then firing a missile and creating a fireball to overwhelm a target the idea is the entire energy output is direct as a beam of ultra high energy gamma radiation, and of course plasma. They were capable of reformatting that shaped charge in the field, able to manipulate the energy output into whatever kind of weapon they needed.

[@lloydevans2900]

When this video started describing the Orion drive, I immediately thought of the Casaba-howitzer, and was hoping it would get a mention. The fact that you did describe it was immensely satisfying and showed that you had definitely done your research on this. I first read about it in the book entitled "Project Orion", written by George Dyson, the son of Freeman Dyson, who was once of the progenitors of the Orion drive, aka nuclear pulse propulsion. The "pulse units" for Orion basically being mini Casaba howitzer shells aimed at the pusher plate at the back of the ship, which absorbs the kinetic energy of the plasma jet and transfers the momentum to the ship itself. Large versions of the ship using low density material to form the plasma jet, like expanded polystyrene foam, and small versions of the ship using dense metal discs, ideally of tungsten but a real version would probably use something cheaper like lead. Anyway, the Casaba-Howitzer with a narrowly focused plasma beam would be the closest real weapon system to the Star Trek type "phaser" or the Asgard plasma-beam weapons installed on the Daedalus class ships in Stargate Atlantis. Incredible that reality can follow science fiction this way, though of course that isn't quite accurate because the original series of Star Trek was created at about the same time as ARPA first funded the Orion project in the 1960s.

[@sookendestroy1]

I personally like the idea of the bomb pumped nuclear porcupine, spin it at high speed and you have a heck of a light show