It's not an RPG Genre convention to have a weapon like that.Nodder said:
Yes to all of those, actually. Or at least the way it's been implemented in this game.Nodder said:
The MIRV - spoiler
- Thread starter ShatteredJon
- Start date
Sorry for going on about the fat man in the mirv thread...I haven't seen it in use...I should probably youtube it. But it does seem pretty...easter-egg-y.
Now for some somewhat more serious replies:
ShatteredJon
Nukes aren’t the only thing that makes would-be mushroom clouds…this is supposedly a 0.75 ton TNT Equivalent bomb (this is pure chemistry tho):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuQpK0ZT7s&NR=1
That kindof sortof looks a little like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRJVq2LLvDA
Only, it appears the Fat Man is even smaller than 750kg of TNT equivalent.
But if you compare these to “real” mushroom clouds, it’s obvious that the bigass nukes make mushroom clouds that are completely different from both of these. To be fair, I haven’t played around with the fat man myself, so maybe I’m watching too many videoes =P
As for plausibility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54
This thing went down to 10T, and my other quote says that yeilds can go below 1 ton TNT equivalent. Again, I’m no physcisist, but it seems to me that a 1T TNT Equivalent bomb would be lighter than a 10T bomb…and the 10 T bomb is 27 cm’s in diameter and weighs 23 kg. Seems like a power armored fellow would be able to carry it just fine – and with the advancements we’ve since made in capacitors and chemical explosives as well as weapon design, I bet you could trim a lot of that weight off; again, as far as I understand all you need to do is bring some fissile material to a high enough density, and keep some deuterium and triterium inside the middle of it, and you have a fusion assisted fission explosion, which is what the W54 does.
If modern technology allows you to make the stuff more dense (requires closely timed explosions, therefor chemicals and capacitors need to be exceptionally advanced), then modern technology allows you to have less fissile material in a bomb, and therefore it can be lighter…unless I’m misunderstanding something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass#Critical_mass_of_a_bare_sphere
According to this, some materials have a very low critical mass. And this is without assisting with fusionable materials in the middle for extra neutrons, which is the trick used in the W54…it also doesn’t take neutron reflective materials into account, nor high pressure.
But I don’t know if the explosion could go all the way down to 250kg or perhaps 500kg TNT equivalent…and the fat man in the game appears to be no more powerful than that, at most.
UncannyGarlic wrote:
“It'd probably bake the wearer if it was blasting away .8mm of titanium. That said, that site is set up for calculating in terms of megatons, not in terms of tons and thus the amount of conventional explosives and their comparative effect might very well be miscalculated.“
That’s a good point – and I can’t do the calculations myself because even if I looked everything up I wouldn’t know if I did it correctly. Which is why I hope someone in one of those former cycles did it; it seems like this argument always has the same outcome – and if someone who has read those arguments can point me to it, I’d love to read them! (…searching hasn’t done me much good, though it might just have been bad luck or poor search skills on my part…)
“That said, why would you ever make a 1 ton nuclear bomb?”
I don’t know about you, but if I had to bring down a 10 stories tall building filled with angry Chinese soldiers, a 1 ton TNT equivalent nuclear bomb seems like a really easy way to do it if I have to do it on my own.
“Also, why would you arm infantry with such a weapon when the same effect (minus the nasty radiation) could be achieved with cruise missiles, bombs dropped from planes, or an armored weapons platform?”
In conventional warfare, I agree completely. If you’re able to use the Colin doctrin, you don’t want to use this. But Mr. Powell’s doctrin is unfeasable in conflicts involving superpowers. The Davy Crocket was deployed during the cold war, and assigned to infantry in western Germany because the USSR had a lot of scary tanks, many many more (and likely supperior) compared to those of a combined Western Europe. And someone thought that if the Reds decided to attack, we would not necessarily have air supperiority.
While the Davy Crocket might not be able to take down the tanks themselves (or they might…who knows, there’s so little info on those things…), it would definitely be able to destroy supply convoys and bridges. Deploying armor divisions rapidly opens a vulnerable flank in your forces: the enemy can utilize war of attrition.
In Fallout we don’t know if the Chinese armies outnumber the US armed forces; we don’t know if they have a lot of carriers and aircraft. In my mind, those two would be valid excuses for deploying a device like the Davy Crocket, because infantry is useful even if you don’t have air supperiority.
But we don’t know these things, so that’s pure speculation.
What we do know is that resources are supposed to be really scarce. What we do know is that attrition warfare seems to be a really good idea if you can pull it off in a situation like that. Cue a squad of power armored dudes where one has a foldable magnetic catapult and a mininuke, and one of the others has 2 mininukes. Drop them down in parachutes somewhere nasty, or get them ashore from a submarine, something or other, but deploy them behind enemy lines and grind their war machine to a halt.
What you don’t do is drop a pickup truck with a parachute and 1 ton of TNT loaded into the warzone because you’re afraid of nuclear fallout.
This part of it, I don’t really see how you can question – in Fallout, in the war between the US and China, a 1ton infantry weilded nuke would be useful.
The question is, to me anyway, is such a device plausible or not. And would it be useful after 200 years, and looking like what the fatman looks like?
Now for some somewhat more serious replies:
ShatteredJon
Nukes aren’t the only thing that makes would-be mushroom clouds…this is supposedly a 0.75 ton TNT Equivalent bomb (this is pure chemistry tho):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuQpK0ZT7s&NR=1
That kindof sortof looks a little like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRJVq2LLvDA
Only, it appears the Fat Man is even smaller than 750kg of TNT equivalent.
But if you compare these to “real” mushroom clouds, it’s obvious that the bigass nukes make mushroom clouds that are completely different from both of these. To be fair, I haven’t played around with the fat man myself, so maybe I’m watching too many videoes =P
As for plausibility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54
This thing went down to 10T, and my other quote says that yeilds can go below 1 ton TNT equivalent. Again, I’m no physcisist, but it seems to me that a 1T TNT Equivalent bomb would be lighter than a 10T bomb…and the 10 T bomb is 27 cm’s in diameter and weighs 23 kg. Seems like a power armored fellow would be able to carry it just fine – and with the advancements we’ve since made in capacitors and chemical explosives as well as weapon design, I bet you could trim a lot of that weight off; again, as far as I understand all you need to do is bring some fissile material to a high enough density, and keep some deuterium and triterium inside the middle of it, and you have a fusion assisted fission explosion, which is what the W54 does.
If modern technology allows you to make the stuff more dense (requires closely timed explosions, therefor chemicals and capacitors need to be exceptionally advanced), then modern technology allows you to have less fissile material in a bomb, and therefore it can be lighter…unless I’m misunderstanding something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass#Critical_mass_of_a_bare_sphere
According to this, some materials have a very low critical mass. And this is without assisting with fusionable materials in the middle for extra neutrons, which is the trick used in the W54…it also doesn’t take neutron reflective materials into account, nor high pressure.
But I don’t know if the explosion could go all the way down to 250kg or perhaps 500kg TNT equivalent…and the fat man in the game appears to be no more powerful than that, at most.
UncannyGarlic wrote:
“It'd probably bake the wearer if it was blasting away .8mm of titanium. That said, that site is set up for calculating in terms of megatons, not in terms of tons and thus the amount of conventional explosives and their comparative effect might very well be miscalculated.“
That’s a good point – and I can’t do the calculations myself because even if I looked everything up I wouldn’t know if I did it correctly. Which is why I hope someone in one of those former cycles did it; it seems like this argument always has the same outcome – and if someone who has read those arguments can point me to it, I’d love to read them! (…searching hasn’t done me much good, though it might just have been bad luck or poor search skills on my part…)
“That said, why would you ever make a 1 ton nuclear bomb?”
I don’t know about you, but if I had to bring down a 10 stories tall building filled with angry Chinese soldiers, a 1 ton TNT equivalent nuclear bomb seems like a really easy way to do it if I have to do it on my own.
“Also, why would you arm infantry with such a weapon when the same effect (minus the nasty radiation) could be achieved with cruise missiles, bombs dropped from planes, or an armored weapons platform?”
In conventional warfare, I agree completely. If you’re able to use the Colin doctrin, you don’t want to use this. But Mr. Powell’s doctrin is unfeasable in conflicts involving superpowers. The Davy Crocket was deployed during the cold war, and assigned to infantry in western Germany because the USSR had a lot of scary tanks, many many more (and likely supperior) compared to those of a combined Western Europe. And someone thought that if the Reds decided to attack, we would not necessarily have air supperiority.
While the Davy Crocket might not be able to take down the tanks themselves (or they might…who knows, there’s so little info on those things…), it would definitely be able to destroy supply convoys and bridges. Deploying armor divisions rapidly opens a vulnerable flank in your forces: the enemy can utilize war of attrition.
In Fallout we don’t know if the Chinese armies outnumber the US armed forces; we don’t know if they have a lot of carriers and aircraft. In my mind, those two would be valid excuses for deploying a device like the Davy Crocket, because infantry is useful even if you don’t have air supperiority.
But we don’t know these things, so that’s pure speculation.
What we do know is that resources are supposed to be really scarce. What we do know is that attrition warfare seems to be a really good idea if you can pull it off in a situation like that. Cue a squad of power armored dudes where one has a foldable magnetic catapult and a mininuke, and one of the others has 2 mininukes. Drop them down in parachutes somewhere nasty, or get them ashore from a submarine, something or other, but deploy them behind enemy lines and grind their war machine to a halt.
What you don’t do is drop a pickup truck with a parachute and 1 ton of TNT loaded into the warzone because you’re afraid of nuclear fallout.
This part of it, I don’t really see how you can question – in Fallout, in the war between the US and China, a 1ton infantry weilded nuke would be useful.
The question is, to me anyway, is such a device plausible or not. And would it be useful after 200 years, and looking like what the fatman looks like?
mrblonde2000
First time out of the vault
Per said:
I never said the "Fat Man" existed in real life, just something that is comparable to it and might have been inspiration. By the year 2277 who knows what kind of technology will be out there and I am sure crazier things will exist by that time than a shoulder mounted tactical nuke.
That's just my opinion tho and I respect everyone here who fights so vigorously for the original games and what not. It really is inspiring as no matter what is thrown at them they dont back down
I personally enjoy Fallout 3 and considering how huge of a success this has been cant wait until Beth starts working on F4!
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
The only parts of the Powell doctrine that apply are "Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?" and "Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?" Also important to note is the advancement in ICBM and cruise missile technologies since the Cold War but it's also important to note that Fallout isn't quite like our world. Again, we have conventional weapons which are more powerful than 1 ton of TNT and weapons which can acheive anything that a handheld nuclear weapon can. Also note that armored weapon platforms are far more useful and effective for this sort of use than a hand held weapon is.Tejlgaard said:
The first sentence is most important, resources are scarce and one of the resources being fought over is uranium. Now why would a country waste such material on hand held nukes instead of using them in high yield bombs or powerplants? Yes, the government isn't always logical but this just seems like a bit too much of a leap.Tejlgaard said:
Right, as I said, I think it's plausible but not practicle and thus not something which would be created.Tejlgaard said:
Fallout is on a different timelime and the world ended in 2077. Also the question to ask is does it fit the tone and theme of the series? I can't see how this can be answered with an affirmative given how seriously nuclear weapons are treated in the setting and in previous gamesmrblonde2000 said:
Nodder
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Final Fantasy has limit breaks, don't they? Don't most RPGs have some sort of rare super attack that only occurs several times a day?
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
First off, JPRGs are an entirely different genre from western RPGs and not every JRPG has limit breaks or an equivalent, nor even does every Final Fantasy game (FFXII had a shitty replacement for limit breaks but it was a super attack). On to the question. No. Magic users have traditionally only had a limited number of spells per day (thanks to D&D, though D&D4E has revamped their system to be balanced [3.x was a disaster in that regard]) but while the rare RPG does what you suggest, most don't.Nodder said:
Tejlgaard said:
the main point is that you can create up to 1T of TNT equivalent explosive force with conventional chemical explosives.
a) cheaper
b) a LOT less complex weapon design, therefore more reliable
c) no remaining radiation
so, the design is feasible, yes. but makes little sense.
well, thankfully you do not need air superiority for SRBMs and MRBMs. trust me, had the cold war escalated, the comparatively small davy crockett would have played a very small role, since western doctrine would have transformed everything east of the rhine / elbe into dust and/or glass. we are talking high-yield here, because a) they expected a sh*tload of tanks which b) were hardened against neutron radiation, so low-yield, high-radiation bombs wouldn't have worked.
UncannyGarlic:
Perhaps only a small amount of uranium was necessary by this point. Perhaps the capacitor technology had advanced to the point that plutonium was a viable nuclear weapon.
Or, perhaps maintaining a production of 2+ ton cruise missiles, as well as maintenence crew and training, and platform delivery systems, in reality more expensive? Ships and submarines both requirre large amounts of oil or nuclear material to operate, as well as supplies and manpower in the field.
I mean, I don't know why you think it's too much of a leap to think that mininukes could be cheaper, so I have to guess and try to respond to that.
But if you want a more satisfactory discussion, I think you should try to backup your claim that 30 pound mininukes are always more expensive to produce and deploy than a weapon of similar flexibility and potency; Why would those weapons always be cheaper?
Without knowing this, I can't really tell if I should be convinced by your argument or not :-/
Also my point with mentioning the Powell doctrin is that most of our recent wars have been faught while adhering to it. Quite clearly, the wars in the fallout universe do not; and I think that weapons designed to use in a conflict where the Powell doctrin is used are probably quite different from weapons designed for use in the fallout 3 conflicts. Quite clearly, exit strategy, minimizing human casualties, and ensuring that the american people back up the war are secondary here. In fallout 3, the goal of war is to win, nomatter the cost, in my oppinion.
DSJ:
You can't make a 1T TNT Equivalent of chemical explosives without it weighing 1 Ton. Therefore you cannot put it in the hands of infantry.
There exists no chemical equivalent to this weapon as you suggest.
As for complexity...one is a tiny little 30 pound device. The other is a huge 2-ton guided smartbomb that requirres a pilot and maintenence crew to operate, all of whom must not make mistakes.
With modern day design and access to fast capacitors and high grade chemical explosives, I'm not convinced it would by default be a more complex weapon.
The only equivalent is a high speed bomber with a 1 ton chemical warhead, which requirres air supperiority, or a 2-ton(at least!) cruise missile, which requirres naval superiority, or a nearby submarine that doesn't mind getting detected. Both of these requirre supply lines to be in place.
And I agree - the western nuke doctrin was a good deterrent, but if you're playing chicken, it helps a lot to have something other than your last resort that you can throw at your enemy. Convincing him that you'll keep driving nomatter what, without actually resorting to driving nomatter what, is the goal. This is why tactical nukes are interesting in the first place, in spite of our access to strategic nukes.
But even so, in the grand scheme of things, had it escalated, you're probably right, the crocket wouldn't have mattered - we wouldn't have been attacked without the USSR being willing to enter into full nuclear war, and that might well have followed. The point is, in spite of all this, the Crocket was still tested, produced, _and_ deployed. The only logical reason would be to act as a weapon against supply lines and infantry, which in turn acts as a deterrent. That is, in my oppinion...tho if you have some better explanation for it's use, I'm willing to listen.
Perhaps only a small amount of uranium was necessary by this point. Perhaps the capacitor technology had advanced to the point that plutonium was a viable nuclear weapon.
Or, perhaps maintaining a production of 2+ ton cruise missiles, as well as maintenence crew and training, and platform delivery systems, in reality more expensive? Ships and submarines both requirre large amounts of oil or nuclear material to operate, as well as supplies and manpower in the field.
I mean, I don't know why you think it's too much of a leap to think that mininukes could be cheaper, so I have to guess and try to respond to that.
But if you want a more satisfactory discussion, I think you should try to backup your claim that 30 pound mininukes are always more expensive to produce and deploy than a weapon of similar flexibility and potency; Why would those weapons always be cheaper?
Without knowing this, I can't really tell if I should be convinced by your argument or not :-/
Also my point with mentioning the Powell doctrin is that most of our recent wars have been faught while adhering to it. Quite clearly, the wars in the fallout universe do not; and I think that weapons designed to use in a conflict where the Powell doctrin is used are probably quite different from weapons designed for use in the fallout 3 conflicts. Quite clearly, exit strategy, minimizing human casualties, and ensuring that the american people back up the war are secondary here. In fallout 3, the goal of war is to win, nomatter the cost, in my oppinion.
DSJ:
You can't make a 1T TNT Equivalent of chemical explosives without it weighing 1 Ton. Therefore you cannot put it in the hands of infantry.
There exists no chemical equivalent to this weapon as you suggest.
As for complexity...one is a tiny little 30 pound device. The other is a huge 2-ton guided smartbomb that requirres a pilot and maintenence crew to operate, all of whom must not make mistakes.
With modern day design and access to fast capacitors and high grade chemical explosives, I'm not convinced it would by default be a more complex weapon.
The only equivalent is a high speed bomber with a 1 ton chemical warhead, which requirres air supperiority, or a 2-ton(at least!) cruise missile, which requirres naval superiority, or a nearby submarine that doesn't mind getting detected. Both of these requirre supply lines to be in place.
And I agree - the western nuke doctrin was a good deterrent, but if you're playing chicken, it helps a lot to have something other than your last resort that you can throw at your enemy. Convincing him that you'll keep driving nomatter what, without actually resorting to driving nomatter what, is the goal. This is why tactical nukes are interesting in the first place, in spite of our access to strategic nukes.
But even so, in the grand scheme of things, had it escalated, you're probably right, the crocket wouldn't have mattered - we wouldn't have been attacked without the USSR being willing to enter into full nuclear war, and that might well have followed. The point is, in spite of all this, the Crocket was still tested, produced, _and_ deployed. The only logical reason would be to act as a weapon against supply lines and infantry, which in turn acts as a deterrent. That is, in my oppinion...tho if you have some better explanation for it's use, I'm willing to listen.
Tejlgaard said:
yes you can, why do you think i brought it up?
the MOAB weighs 7 tons. has a yield of 11 tons of tnt.
the russian "FOAB" weighs 7 tons. produces an estimated yield of 44 tons of tnt.
C4 has a conversion factor of 1.35. PETN has 1.7. Chloratite 3 has 2.2.
plastic explosives only need a primer to operate. a small nuclear warhead is a complex design.
although i give you that. what the warhead lacks in complexity is usually counter-weighted by the delivery system.
cruise missiles are not exclusive to the navy.
SRBMs and MRBMs may be used as tactical nukes. they have better range and reliability than anything infantry can carry.
plus, "tactical" still means about 50 to 200 kt.
besides, from what i have read, it is commonly accepted that any war between superpowers will eventually escalate to a full scale nuclear exchange.
the idea was dropped relatively (in weapon system terms) quickly.
your ideas are good, but
a) supply lines, at least the crucial ones (the ones that connect divisions and regiments, that is) are way back from the front lines. 100km at least. anything below that can operate autonomously for AT LEAST 24 to 48 hours. in mechanized warfare, that is a lot.
b) infantry has been mechanized since the end of the second world war. infantry will always travel in APCs or IFVs and only dismount to fight the enemy head-on. they will only attack in combination with tanks. that means you would only be able to strike them after they dismounted, when they are in the open. which in turn means, they are already in small-arms range to your own troops (russian line-of-dismount is 300m from the enemy). i wouldn't want to throw nuclear warhead around there.
DJS4000 said:yes you can, why do you think i brought it up?
the MOAB weighs 7 tons. has a yield of 11 tons of tnt.
the russian "FOAB" weighs 7 tons. produces an estimated yield of 44 tons of tnt.
C4 has a conversion factor of 1.35. PETN has 1.7. Chloratite 3 has 2.2.
You called a bad assumption on my part - thanks!
That changes the picture somewhat. I still do see the use for a bigass explosive in a small package, but if regular explosives are as potent as the FOAB you mention, a 30 pound bomb could pack probably 100 kg of TNT equivalent by 2070...
In which case the fatman would make sense as a bigass bomb launcher and not a mininuke launcher.
Really? What other deliverysystems do we have? a mobile rocket platform and a bigass bomber or something? I know that it's possible, the germans had that V2 thing in world war 2, and the russians have mobile ICBM's (right?) - but since you seem to know, what are the options?
Are you suggesting that most conventional military doesn't make sense when we're talking about a conflict, hypothetical or real, between 2 superpowers with stockpiled nukes?
Or simply that the particular venue that the Davy Crocket was didn't make sense?
I'd have to go with the behind the enemy lines one then. Or perhaps as a scare-tactics....but those are really the only serious uses I can see for it at the time it was in active use.
But a weapon with a smaller payload, radiation shielded soldiers with filtered airsupplies, and improved self-reliance of squads behind enemy lines...then I could see it making more of a case for itself.
Tejlgaard said:
goodness, your are one of the few people to admit they were wrong over the internet. you gain karma
garden variety TELs. that is, big trucks with missiles on their back. the west had the BGM-109, russia had the ssc-4 and -5. potent weapons, since the launch would not have been spotted by satellites. of course they can also be air launched.
crusie missiles are only usually connected to the navy since they have become the main weapon system of cruisers for attacking ground targets. they are superior to large-bore guns.
a conventional conflict might precede such, but as soon as defeat nears, the nuclear arsenal becomes more and more valuable. and as soon as someones breaks the barrier, be it in form of the crockett or something else, it is on.
as a weapon for special forces, perhaps. but you'd have to strike vital targets to have any effect on the whole campaign.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Also note that the US and Russia (not sure if Europe also has these [parts with nuclear capabilities probably do]) both have ICBMs (which are launched from static silos) which can hit anywhere on the globe.DJS4000 said:
DJS4000 said:Tejlgaard said:goodness, your are one of the few people to admit they were wrong over the internet. you gain karma
Thankyou ! And yup, I do. It was also obvious to everybody reading so I might as well own up to it =P
So the point would be, there is no such thing as a small scale or regional nuclear conflict.
Hmm. I'll have to think on that.
Yeah, that seems like a reasonable limit.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
ICBMs don't have to have nuclear payloads and the first ones didn't (Germany invented them [V1 and V2]).Tejlgaard said:
Nodder
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Alright, well FPS usually have a ridiculously overpowered most powerful gun weapon, though. The one that maps out to 9 on the keyboard.
UncannyGarlic
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Except that nuclear power/energy wasn't taken for granted in the Fallout setting, it was treated with extreme respect.Marx said:
Nodder
It Wandered In From the Wastes
They had nuclear cars.