Questions tagged [kinetic-weapons]
For questions about kinetic weapons, their uses, technology, and application. Kinetic weapons move a mass to speeds hostile to the target. That mass may be as small as an electron or as great as an asteroid, so long as the question is about the object accelerating the mass and not the mass itself.
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Is it possible to use rail guns or mass drivers as some kind of anti orbital weapon?
I know it is possible to use missiles to shoot down satellites in orbit but what about using rail guns or mass drivers as some sort of anti orbit weapon. I know the idea of a "space gun" ...
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Could a solid metal, tapered, segmented whip with a tip of equal mass to a 5.56 round produce fire arm like ballistics if cracked? (Not on the ground)
The whip would be around 10–11 feet long and most likely made from some steel alloy. If we were to ignore the strength limitations of humans and assume that someone could actually effectively use this ...
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When would a cannon be a quick weather device if you put a sock in it?
I’ve had an aerial combat scene written for a while but I’m not sure how to describe the environment that would make it work. In in the heat of pursuit, my very salty Captain is frustrated at his ...
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How would a multipurpose railgun work
In my game, spaceships need to have weapons with more than one purpose, due to the cost of hauling extra weight across interplanetary/interstellar space. My railgun needs to be able to fire plasma ...
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How can an object pass through a building without taking significant damage?
A kaiju swinging its arm through a building, a superhero that, locked in battle with a villain, flies through several buildings, a huge mecha that uses its ax on a skyscraper, like a lumberjack would ...
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What does a 5km/s wind coming through a portal look like?
If your anchored-to-a-gateway-at-one-end-but-other-end-free-floating wormhole technology has the handwaved ability to match orientation and velocity to the surface of a distant planet, it also has the ...
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433 Eros hits the Moon. How much rock hits the Earth?
A la this image I made.
The "how" (nuclear pulse drive "adjusting" Eros's orbit at its aphelion) and "why" (uber-sized Rods from God) isn't particularly relevant — all ...
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Would airdropped kinetic projectiles be useful against medieval armies?
In my world, there exists giant eagles kind of similar to the ones in LOTR. These eagles are large enough to ride and are domesticated.
As a result, people have been using this giant eagles in warfare....
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What would be the quickest way to sterilize a planet from several light-years away?
I'm thinking of a couple main ways, but they seem pretty unreliable for complete sterilization. I'm imaging a pretty reclusive hermit civilization around their solar system. They see intelligent life ...
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Are Mass Effect "style" guns possible?
In Sci Fi, the majority of weapons come in the form of either some kind of energy beam/bolt, or as testosterone-dripping slug-throwers. In Mass Effect and the Aldreaverse utilize weapons that fire ...
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How could I calculate the necessary power to kill a fictional beast?
Say we have a pterodactyl-wyvern or a huge dragon-anaconda, maybe something like a t-rex, or a sand-crocodile, or a slime--- you get the idea. Assuming one wanted to make a fictional manual with ...
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Accuracy limits of Victorian-era rifles
I have a fictional character in 1870 who is a marksman of superhuman ability; basically, he doesn't need a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight, he is a sniper with a telescopic sight, and can get the ...
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Can a Relativistic Kill Vehicle be a single particle?
To those that don't know what an RKV is: a projectile (could be a spaceship, could be a bullet) that moves with a significant fraction of lightspeed. Maybe even close to lightspeed. Anything it hits ...
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What weapons and equipment would be best for a Dullahan in this setting?
Note: Other than a detachable head, there isn't much in common with the standard Irish myth, and this makes use of a magic system. I'm also fine with a little hand waving if I must, I would just ...
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Piezoelectric device for a mace
A lady warrior in this story uses two main weapons.
A bow for long range
A mace for melee combat
This question concerns the operation of the mace.
Within the head of the weapon, during any impact (...
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Warfare in a universe with FTL on rather fragile platforms? [closed]
How do you imagine the large picture of space warfare would shape into in a universe with the following characteristics:
There is FTL, but it's just available in very large and expensive platforms, ...
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Can a Tungsten-rod Kinetic Strike create an EMP given enough speed?
So in my story, I have one side of the war using an orbital-based railgun to fire a tungsten rod at extremely high velocity onto a populated city. Let's say the tungsten rod is around one ton, and it'...
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How much power/pressure would be required for air weapons to be as deadly as fire weapons?
Ironically, it would be thought that with modern technology, the "next step" for fire weapons would mean to produce direct energy weapons such as Rail Guns, Lasers or Microwaves, however, ...
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Can unlimited kinetic energy be stored in superfluid helium?
Liquid helium can be in a state of superfluidity — meaning it can flow with zero internal friction. Let's assume that for whatever reason that this form of helium is present in large amounts. Could ...
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How would a near light speed impact on Jupiter affect the planet and the solar system? [closed]
The object was originally "fired" as a weapon used from space to hit planets.let's say it is a long cylinder with a very high density and it was accelerated at some point to 90% of C.
The ...
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Orbital Bombardment of Airships
Imagine that you're the admiral of a fleet of warships in orbit around Saturn. You need to capture targets on Titan, the largest moon. (This could also be applied to, say, Venus or one of the gas ...
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Recoilless Rifles vs Bazookas against non Mechanical Targets
I need a weapon that is shoulder fired that can deal with heavy monsters such as a minotaur and the likes, but light enough so that the user can carry at least another small arm without to much hassle....
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Shoulder Mounted Weapon Design in a dieselpunk/ww1 time period
In my setting a large city state has been cut off from the rest of civilization through the appearance of a large alien forest that sprouted up during the medieval times and cut off the city state ...
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How a kinetic strike from orbit would look like? [closed]
The impactor is a tungsten rod of 5 tons, moving at 0.015c, impacting a generic land spot on Earth.
Calculator of kinetic energy outputs that this will be equivalent to ~2 Mt nuclear warhead (if I'm ...
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What happens during simultaneous hits on a tank
For various reasons I have an army that uses many smaller vehicles instead of spending a lot of full main battle tanks. This army uses mostly up to 90mm* cannons on their vehicles rather than the ...
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How effective would Rods from God be on an underwater target?
If I take a Rod from God, drop it on to an ocean somewhere, what exactly happens?
Let's say there's a secret base about 10,000 feet or so underwater. Is it still okay?
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Effects of a Super High Velocity Cannon on a Planet
In the 23rd century, humans are at war with a technologically advanced alien species. Humans discovered a method of faster than light travel during early stages of this war when an alien capital ship ...
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Hard sci-fi super weapons?
So in my questions about the intergalactic highway and simulated ship quarters I established a universe where the navy fights a cult of alien worshipers over star gates. 500 to 700 years in the future....
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Advantage of miniguns being military standard?
I'm writing a sci fi fiction based on mass effect, different from the series though.
In it I've made humans terrified of an alien invasion/genocide so they focus on firepower/rate of fire or both. ...
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How to make pneumatic weaponry/airguns the main weapons of a miliary force?
Perhaps you know of pneumatic weapons also called airguns, but for those who don't; they're weapons that use air as propellant to launch a projectile rather than for example black powder or smokeless ...
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Destruction of a Trojan Asteroid by an RKV
The history
During the Great War between two nations, one sent an RKV (Relativistic Kill Vehicle) towards an enemy factory as a message to show their power but not kill needlessly. The base was in a ...
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Weaponized Instruments
In the main palace in my world, there are no soldiers or guards, and in their place, there are musicians. This is because the musicians have instruments that double as weapons, and they have been ...
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Can there be a scientific explanation for an indestructible kaiju? [closed]
Assume that the kaiju is insusceptible to all weapons but nuclear ones. What could explain its impenetrable form?
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Alternate power for projectile weapons [duplicate]
I am working on a series set a few hundred years in the future where fusion power is common and starships roam between planets. I am trying to think of a way to power small Arms weapons and keep them ...
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Shooting through the earth
Due to reasons of magic an alien god that is about to takeover the earth in one year and can only be stopped by being shot through the entire earth.
Assuming modern day Earth (no magic other then ...
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How small and fast can a bullet go in atmosphere?
In many sci fi universes that don't have handheld energy weapons, they instead use solid projectiles that either go big (Warhammer 40k) or really small (Mass Effect). The former I have a pretty good ...
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Can a coilgun be used to boost a traditionally or non-traditionally chemically powered weapon?
So, I was wondering if for small scale weaponry (150mm guns and smaller) using a coilgun to assist in the acceleration of a traditional chemically accelerated round, either while in the barrel burning ...
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How can these kinetic weapons be made more plausible?
I am looking for plausible mechanisms to legitimize (or replace) the physics-based weaponry used in the fictional world of my latest story.
My story utilizes a range of weapons (like Starship ...
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Could a steel cylinder punch through plate armor?
I want to be a bit more creative in my design of medieval weapons, and have begun looking into the creation of an Arbalest that instead of shooting traditional crossbow bolts, shoots metallic ...
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Feasible Sci-fi 200-300 years away weapons? [closed]
I am writing a book about an Oceanic planet about 1/4 the size of Earth, under the assumption that there was a wormhole at the beginning of the 1600s on Earth, leading to two island-nations above the ...
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Optimizing a relativistic anti-personnel weapon
Let's say you have a technology that lets you build a gun that can accelerate a mass up to 145 grams to a speed of 0.90 C. (Don't worry about the plausibility of this technology) The projectile can ...
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Could an eruption be triggered at Yellowstone via kinetic bombardment?
While similar questions have been asked, I don't believe kinetic bombardment was brought up, with focus centred around nuclear warheads.
Considering the ability for a "rod from god" to embed into the ...
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how fast would a magic rail/coil gun need to fire to melt its tungsten bullet
In my story magic allows for the creation of accelerators that can multiply the speed of any object that passes through them. These accelerators allow for modified conventional weapons to fire at rail ...
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What is the yield of a 1kg solid concrete transporter bomb?
I want to beam into solid concrete as a bomb. I have transporters and unlike Star Trek I’m not afraid to use them. Terrorists have taken the tech and have nasty plans for us.
The bomb is 1 kg sphere ...
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Is there a velocity threshold that when passed would make a kinetic projectile more than just "piercing"?
As my recent inquiries have shown, when a kinetic projectile has sufficient speed, it does more than 'penetrate and perforate'. It will have somewhat of an explosive effect, right?
Difference to the ...
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What is the maximum viable speed for a projectile within earth's atmosphere?
Assume a projectile,
made of a very heat-resistant and durable material (something like tungsten), formed like a modern saboted tank cannon shot.
If tungsten, like suggested, is not ideal, you can ...
user6415
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What would be the strongest "realistic" bow draw weight with ubertech?
I'm trying to help develop a "high tech" bow for a video game, to be used mostly by prestige soldiers with ubertech against low-tech industrial civilizations as a kind of a status game; their enemies ...
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Why would non-kinetic weapons be used for orbital bombardment?
The space borne planetary invasion force is a staple of many Sci-fi genres and most space invasions face the need to destroy some, or all, ground based infrastructure from orbit in order to take over ...
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Space missiles system [closed]
I have been reading lately the Honor Harrington series and I wonder how would torpedoes and missiles work in space. What Weber uses is some kind of nuclear head that pumps several lasers, does that ...
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Is a self contained air-bullet cartridge feasible?
In my world, there is no access to modern or traditional gunpowder. I was wondering if a dedicated technician with a modern shop (cnc machines, and a surplus of parts and raw material, etc) would be ...
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