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Originally Posted by Tabitha
So I guess Im still wondering why they dont shoot big drums of Einsteinium or some other equally rare and volitile and dense material at each other. After all, the mass of a fifty five gallon drum of some isotope that dense hitting a starship, while it can be made to not over penetrate, would have to release the energy of the mass in the only direction available, to the sides. That would create heat, light, and certainly compression. Maybe Im wrong, if so please correct me. But that being the case, the kinetic energy of a mass density isotope releasing a hypersonic level of energy in all directions, should be able to pop open a starship, built to keep its pressure in, but designed more to keep outside objects from penetrating, would not have the structural integrity to withstand the enormous amount of energy given off by a single kinetic missle. In fact, I dont believe anything man made could ever do so.
Thats just a guess.
tabbi
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Tabbi;
Using mass drivers(cannons) to smash holes in things is so sensible; that it is the primary means we use in the real world to damage spacecraft(satellites).
So you are quite correct!
You would probably use a hardened drum(shell) to punch into the hull before a time delay fuse detonates the warhead to rupture the spacecraft and use all the available energy.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor-p...shot_and_shell
Armor-piercing shot and shell
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An armour piercing shell is a type of ammunition designed to penetrate armour. In naval warfare and older anti-tank shells, the shell had to withstand the shock of punching through armour plate. Shells designed for this purpose had a greatly strengthened case with a specially hardened and shaped nose, and a much smaller bursting charge. Some smaller calibre AP shells had no bursting charge at all. Plain AP shell is now very rarely seen except in naval usage, and is not commonly used there.
(Rest of the article...D.)
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Now to punch holes in armored hulls we would probably use high velocity rockets carrying these in bundles;
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_round
Kinetic energy penetrator
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A kinetic energy penetrator, long-rod penetrator, or armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) is a type of ammunition which, like a bullet, does not contain explosives, but uses kinetic energy to penetrate the target. The term is used for more powerful projectiles than ordinary bullets which have increased armour penetration capabilities due to:
being fired with a very high muzzle velocity
concentrating the force on a small impact area without having too small a mass
To produce very high speeds the ammunition is normally composed of a narrow penetrator surrounded by a sabot which expands the diameter to the full barrel width of the firing gun. This allows the pressure of the propellant gases to act on the full-size base and produce rapid acceleration of the round, which is lighter than a full metal round of the same diameter would be. Once the round leaves the barrel the sabot falls off, leaving the penetrator travelling at high speed and with a smaller cross-sectional area, which reduces aerodynamic drag during the flight to the target (see external ballistics and terminal ballistics). This technique was first used in anti-tank guns during World War 2; Germany developed sabots under the name "Treibspiegel".
KE-penetrators for modern tanks are commonly just 2-3 centimeters in diameter, and 50-60 centimeters long; as more modern penetrators are developed, their length tends to increase and the diameter to decrease. To maximize the amount of kinetic energy released on the target, the penetrator must be made of a dense material, such as tungsten or depleted uranium (DU). The hardness of the penetrator is of lesser importance. In fact, DU is not particularly hard. An advantage of DU is that it is pyrophoric: the fragments of the penetrator ignite on contact with air. Uranium rod is also self-sharpening on impact due to its adiabatic properties: so it doesn't "mushroom" like unjacketed tungsten does.
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That is a modern antiarmor kinetic energy penetrator.
A modern anti-tank HVAPDS shot(sabot/bolt) can easily pierce up to a half meter of RHA steel. That is done with about 8-10 megajoules of kinetic energy.
The problem with kinetic energy penetrators whether shell or shot/bolt is that once you get to delta vees in the realm of 4000+ mps, the projectile smashes into fragments against a reasonably elastic RHA steel or ceramic plate that is as thick as the projectile is long. You get minor cratering/cracking in the plate and some scorch marks.
Beyond those delta vees you need to melt your way through armor using heatloading and guess what you use to do that?
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