Naquadah Nuke Delivery

[zintradi]

It seems as though by watching the season premere of Atlantis that the Daedelous has very powerfull naquadah enhanced nukes that are delivered via a chemical rocket which is easily intercepted because a chemical rocket can only go as fast as the junk it spits out the back.
It would be better if they made a rail gun type of delivery method in which they turn the bomb into a rail gun slug and fling it at a very high velocity. the thing would be damn near impossible to detect as it would just free fly through space untill it detonates.
I don't know the particulars, but i would think you could get somthing like that to work.

either that or just make bigger progectiles that smash heavier for fighting capital ships.

[Eoin]

agreed, a rail gun type nuke launcher would do some serious damage

[dennycrane]

Why not create a hyperspace field around the misile as you launch it and equip it with a thing-a-magik to take it out of hyperspace just inbetween the shield and the ship. Insta-boom!!!

[6thMonolith]

It's TV. Anything can happen...

Why not use Anti-matter?

[nimitz]

I think everyones ignoring the vast differences involved in these battles just because it seems small doesnt mean it invarably is.
Maybe the railguns would fire the nukes slower and also the electromagnetic forces would destroy the computers inside making them useless.
And we have never actually met anti-matter in the stargate universe so maybe it doesnt exist, cant be built very quickly, very expensive to create large amounts.Though if it did exist what a power source and also a highly effective weapon.

[_Owen_]

Yes, a fast delivery system such as this would be a good idea. In fact, we have discussed this in several other threads as well. Well, not so much discussed as mentioned. So a dedicated thread is a good idea.

Owen Macri

[Lord §okar]

A fast launcher is an incredibly bad delivery system for a nuke. They're fired slowly because they need to accelerate slowly. Sput them out at extreme force and the delicate fission core will become deformed.

[dennycrane]

the em pulse you mention wouldn't affect a mothership if it is engaged outside of the shield because when apophis invades Earth, they fired two nukes, which also create a em pulse(gotta thank Ocean's Eleven for that one) and nothing happened.

[_Owen_]

A fast launcher is an incredibly bad delivery system for a nuke. They're fired slowly because they need to accelerate slowly. Sput them out at extreme force and the delicate fission core will become deformed.

Two simple but not so simple when you think about them words: inertial dampeners.

Owen Macri

[Avatar28]

Not really. Fission cores really aren't all that delicate for starters. Certainly no more so than any other bomb. Also if that were the case bunker buster nuclear weapons would be impossible considering the g-forces they're subjected to on impact and yet they're able to survive. Yes, I realize that we don't have any of those (supposedly at least) at this time, but it is something that the military wishes to pursue and I have yet to read a single thing that suggests they would have problems from the g-forces involved and we DO have plenty of non-nuclear bunker busters in our arsenal and not a single one has problems due to the g-forces involved. We have also, in the past, developed nulcear artillery shells which are fired from a gun and must survive high g-forces. And before someone suggests that a railgun would have to undergo still higher forces, that's not true. It would probably be significantly less since you would have a much longer "barrel" to fire it out of; meaning that it doesn't have to accelerate as quickly to reach a high velocity.

[_Owen_]

Well, I am sure that a couple inertial dampeners would be no problem to conjure up, just in case something does happen. So I doubt that would be a significant problem either way.

Owen Macri

[EnigmaNZ]

God, what did I put in the other threads on this subject. Basically, SG space battles are fought at close quarters, 10 to 100 Km for capital ship to capital ship, we want a delivery time of 1 second to 100 Km to minimise counterattack possibilities. Railgun problems are high power needs and wear on the rails, plus distortions from the magnetic fields. We have the power(naquada generators) a superstrong superconductor (naquada), a strong material to build the mounts from (trinium) so it's all go. The Mk 9 is very small for a multigigaton warhead, it is smaller than the current W-88 nuke used on the MX, Minuteman, Trident, Tomahawk etc, amazing.

The 175mm howitzer was used to fire nuclear shells, though using a gun type rather than implosion type fission core.

On another note, in Beachhead the Prometheus was mentioned to have a "main (or primary) RG". A mistake or a prototype

[_Owen_]

Well, the high power needs can be deemed unimportant if there are a couple ZPMs on board.

Owen Macri

[Auralis]

Well, there ARE/WHERE missiles with a nuclear warhead that accelleratated at over 400g in RL. Tested as ICBM interceptors.

http://www.paineless.id.au/missiles/Sprint.html

and considered that those where buld in the late 60's, it stands to reason that in Stargate time earth would be able to build them pretty easy and much like much better too.

[Eoin]

A fast launcher is an incredibly bad delivery system for a nuke. They're fired slowly because they need to accelerate slowly. Sput them out at extreme force and the delicate fission core will become deformed.

i thought that there was no gravity in space and hence no g-forces??
it seems that you could fire a nuke as fast as you want in space and nothing woud hapen to it.
of course i could be wrong, im probably wrong, so i agree with owen macri throw inertial dampners onto it