A modest weapon proposal

[Aaron]

So...they're used as a bluff then.

No, they are used in the opening salvos of a fleet engagement. Like the attack on DS9 or the final assualt on Cardassia. They just can't be used in close.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

So...they're used as a bluff then.

No, they are used in the opening salvos of a fleet engagement. Like the attack on DS9 or the final assualt on Cardassia. They just can't be used in close.

It was a joke. He said they'd be used like nukes, but nukes aren't used, escpecially not in fleet engagements. They're used as bluffs. So I was making a joke about that.

[Graham Kennedy]

Oh yes, as with any bomb.

I can do some quick and dirty math... might be informative to work out how far away a ship would have to be so that the total energy hitting its shields was the same as that from one phaser beam for one second.

Let's assume the phaser beam gives out Z amount of energy, and my "phaser bomb" outputs one million times that. The intensity of the energy per square metre is given by

1,000,000 Z / 4 pi r^2

Now we will guestimate that the area of a shield is, say, 700 x 300 metres for a Galaxy class ship; 210,000 m^2 total area. We want that total area to be absorbing Z, so the intensity per square metre there will be Z / 210,000.

So at what value of r is this true...

Z / 210,000 = 1,000,000 Z / 4 pi r^2

Bring the 4 pi r^2 up to the left and the 210,000 over to the right...

4 pi r^2 Z = 1,000,000 x 210,000 Z

Happily the Z cancels out...

4 pi r^2 = 210,000,000,000

r = 129,272 m

So what this means is that if this bomb is a million times more energy than a phaser beam, then a Galaxy class 130 kilometres from the detonation will feel effects equivalent to a single phaser beam strike hitting it.

Since this follows the inverse square law, then being 65 km from the blast would be like getting hit by four phaser strikes at once.

For 20 km, it's like being hit by 42 phaser strikes.

For 5 km, it's 676

For 1 km, it's 16,900

So from that I would say a bomb like this detonated in the middle of a fleet would destroy every ship within about 20 kilometres or so, even through full shields. I would think that a handful of these would be extremely useful against the densely packed fleets we see in Sacrifice of Angels. If you dispersed the fleet so the ships are hundreds of kilometres apart that would greatly reduce the effectiveness, though.

It would certainly be a wonderful starbase killer; they have lovely big shields so they'd take far more of the hit than a starship. Detonated close enough, it would be like hitting the base with tens of thousands of phaser beams at once.

Of course that's comparing it to standard warheads of a few kg reaction mass. You could as easily do this with something like Voyager's Dreadnought, and get a blast hundreds of times bigger that would wipe out every ship within around 350 km.

[Aaron]

It was a joke. He said they'd be used like nukes, but nukes aren't used, escpecially not in fleet engagements. They're used as bluffs. So I was making a joke about that.

My apologies, it's hard to tell on a BBS sometimes.

[Mikey]

Well I am really not equipped to get into figures and formula discussions about Trek weaponry. But for consideration, does the fact that a beam weapon concentrates all of its impact on one point, as opposed to a photon detonation (which presumably releases its energy equidistant in every direction, only some of which impacts an enemy ship or its shields) help to equalize the disparity somewhat? That you are actually getting more bang "per buck" with a beam weapon than a torpedo? Or at least a more efficient bang.

I think that's the point - take the more concentrated punch of a directed-energy weapon, but make it so it works like a detonation-effect.

[Teaos]

I dont find any fault with the concept but I do find fault with the amount your powering up phasers.

Phasers dont need to be as powerful as photons. Its like the old saying "what would you rather be hit by, a 50 ton train going at 15 miles and hour or a 3 gram hunk of lead going 500 miles and hour?"

Phasers are used because they can deliever that comparitivly small amount of energy to a spot the size of a basketball and punch through shields and knock out key componants.

Its like the difference between someone giving you a hair cut with a pair of snips or a chainsaw. Both do the job and one far faster than the other. But a chainsaw cant really "take a bit off the top"

So while the idea would work I doubt it would be as powerful as you suggest and since it is omnidiectional a fraction of that power is delivered to the target.

[Captain Seafort]

There's also the question of what "X" is to consider. If it's simply another substance of the week, then fine. If it's a ten-foot cube of machinery then you're going to have problems fitting it into a six-foot PT.

[Teaos]

And although there is no reason to assume X is big it would seem to make sense it is or small ships would have more powerful weapons.

[Captain Seafort]

And although there is no reason to assume X is big it would seem to make sense it is or small ships would have more powerful weapons.

I would say it's likely that its size is roughly proportional to the amount of power it has to channel - hence people or shuttles can carry phasers, but those weapons aren't powerful enough to damage starships.