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Subject: So, nukes work but MACs don't?

About me: I am a vicious wolf of a man.

But really am sweet at heart. =)

I fail to understand this.

If I remember correctly, the new math for a MAC gun is that it shoots at &% the speed of light and shoots 500 ton projectiles...and thats a shipborne model.



So why is it that something that hits with something with the power of a supernova can't break a shield, yet a 30 MEGATON nuke can.

You can throw in the EMP into an equation, but a force that strong could cause the shield to colapse upon it's self and just vaporize the ship with overpreasurized ozone.


Thoughts?

  • 11.08.2010 5:47 AM PDT
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I believe your theory may be correct, even with EMP mentioned. But it is a video game, if your comparing COD to halo, nukes are probably better or"work" because they are used in multiplayer, and need to be as good as they are to get a fair and actual kill. This is my thought

[Edited on 11.08.2010 6:26 AM PST]

  • 11.08.2010 6:25 AM PDT
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The only place the silly .4c number comes from is the encyclopedia, and it's clearly wrong. The newest edition of TFOR still has 30 km/s MACs, and the games show far slower speeds.

  • 11.08.2010 7:11 AM PDT

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Posted by: opogjijijp
The only place the silly .4c number comes from is the encyclopedia, and it's clearly wrong. The newest edition of TFOR still has 30 km/s MACs, and the games show far slower speeds.

This. The encyclopaedia was a bit of a mess really.

  • 11.08.2010 8:59 AM PDT

On hiding dead bodies:
Posted by: Psuedo
Posted by: teh Chaz
Inside another dead body. It's the last place they'll look
A corpse within a corpse.
CORPSEPTION.
Win.

If the shield is strong enough, it could prevent the round from penetrating to the hull, leaving the ship itself unscathed. However, the near-instantaneous deceleration from 30km/s to 0 would shatter, shear and generally obliterate the MAC round, and dissipate much of its impact energy.
If the shield is weak enough, a MAC will penetrate the shield, and then strike the bare hull.

A nuke has temperatures of several million degrees centigrade. If my old shield theory is correct, then potentially these high temperatures can physically boil off the particles that make up an energy shield - thus removing shields. It's one possibility as to why plasma weapons are more effective against shields than kinetics.
There is also an EMP to factor in, but I think that an energy shield (at least partially) blocks EMP.

Not to mention, a shipboard MAC generates nothing on order of the 30Mt nukes generally fielded by the UNSC Navy. A ship MAC, fired from a stationary target to another stationary target, has an impact energy equivalent to (and I can't stress enough how it is an equivalent and not the same as) a 71Kt detonation - roughly 3 and a half Hiroshimas. Yet it is around a quarter percent the energy generated by most nukes.
However, the other point is that a MAC round's impact is focused on one small area. This means it deals a great deal of damage in this area, it is not enough spread across the entire shielding system, and will not collapse the entire shield. A nuke will affect a large percentage of the area covered by shields, and therefore its damage will cover most of the ship, and more than likely overload its entire shielding system.

[Edited on 11.08.2010 1:02 PM PST]

  • 11.08.2010 9:56 AM PDT

Doesn't the heat of the nuclear blast count? I mean even if you plating can resist megatons, can it resist the heat? (Unless someone can explain that to me).

  • 11.08.2010 12:43 PM PDT


Posted by: dangerman1337
Doesn't the heat of the nuclear blast count? I mean even if you plating can resist megatons, can it resist the heat? (Unless someone can explain that to me).


A nuke that is detonated in space would actually emit a very large EMP blast in a spherical fashion, so that effect on a Covenant ship's sheild is the same as a Plasma Pistol to a Spartan/Elite's sheild, while a MAC projectile is somewhat like a DMR shot, and an SMAC projectile would be like a Sniper Bullet.

  • 11.08.2010 5:47 PM PDT
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I agree with stacka30

  • 11.08.2010 8:05 PM PDT

On hiding dead bodies:
Posted by: Psuedo
Posted by: teh Chaz
Inside another dead body. It's the last place they'll look
A corpse within a corpse.
CORPSEPTION.
Win.

Posted by: Stacka30

Posted by: dangerman1337
Doesn't the heat of the nuclear blast count? I mean even if you plating can resist megatons, can it resist the heat? (Unless someone can explain that to me).


A nuke that is detonated in space would actually emit a very large EMP blast in a spherical fashion, so that effect on a Covenant ship's sheild is the same as a Plasma Pistol to a Spartan/Elite's sheild, while a MAC projectile is somewhat like a DMR shot, and an SMAC projectile would be like a Sniper Bullet.
I'm VERY sketchy on EMP's (the Wiki is too damned complicated, even for my level), but the only way for an EMP to occur is for it to be in or near atmosphere, or at least in the presence of a magnetic field - IIRC.

In space, well away from any celestial bodies, surely there would be no EMP at all, unless the ships themselves were somehow able to generate a very large and fluctuating magnetic field.

  • 11.08.2010 11:03 PM PDT


Posted by: JDYeash937 MkII
Posted by: Stacka30

Posted by: dangerman1337
Doesn't the heat of the nuclear blast count? I mean even if you plating can resist megatons, can it resist the heat? (Unless someone can explain that to me).


A nuke that is detonated in space would actually emit a very large EMP blast in a spherical fashion, so that effect on a Covenant ship's sheild is the same as a Plasma Pistol to a Spartan/Elite's sheild, while a MAC projectile is somewhat like a DMR shot, and an SMAC projectile would be like a Sniper Bullet.
I'm VERY sketchy on EMP's (the Wiki is too damned complicated, even for my level), but the only way for an EMP to occur is for it to be in or near atmosphere, or at least in the presence of a magnetic field - IIRC.

In space, well away from any celestial bodies, surely there would be no EMP at all, unless the ships themselves were somehow able to generate a very large and fluctuating magnetic field.


you raise a very interesting point there sir

  • 11.08.2010 11:05 PM PDT

not a single material can survive the heat created by a thermonuclear explosion, there is no reason to suggest such a material can exist either, a thirty megaton explosion will make a fireball around what? 3 - 4km wide? at several million kelvin? my guess is the ships hull would be somewhat melted by that explosion. MACs on the other hand are only in the range of around (if travelling at 35,000 m/s and the rounds mass is 600 metric tons) ~250 kilotons or there about, thats still an enormous amount of energy mind, would put a fair sized hole in a planet for example, because its a kinetic weapon rather than an explosive one, so would behave more like an asteroid/comet impact.

  • 11.10.2010 4:05 PM PDT
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a thirty megaton explosion will make a fireball around what? 3 - 4km wide?

Detonated in atmosphere on the ground, yes, around that size. Possibly slightly smaller. In Space it'll just be a flash of x/gamma ray photons and neutrons.

According to this calculator a 30 megaton nuke would vaporize ~2.5 cm of Ti armor if detonated 3 km away. You'd have to be about 4.8 km away before impulse shock stopped being a problem. Though if you have tougher materials, you can obviously get closer.

thats still an enormous amount of energy mind, would put a fair sized hole in a planet for example,

640 meters in diameter by 146 meters deep as a rough estimate.


  • 11.10.2010 5:42 PM PDT

Operor non planto mihi ledo vestri puga pyga

That's right. Remember - Mass Accelerator Cannons hit with equivalents not THE impact of. Let's say the MAC round accelerates from 1% to 1.3% of light speed every second and it takes 10 seconds to hit, it will be going at 7.6902% of light speed. That is not as fast as you would like. If it was going at that speed then it would only be going 11,606,134.99 kM/h (11 million) out of 1,071,360,000 kM/h (1 hundred thousand million) it's got some speed to go. Now I'm pretty sure a 600 Tonne squash projectile going 11,606,134.99 kM/h seems like a lot - but remember "energy shields" are resistant to kinetic energy - "built for hard, fast strikes - not firefights of atrition" e.g. they are built to withstand the force of that projectile.

Plasma seems to be good at taking down shields - plasma is superheated, ionised particles fired in succesion rather than force. These particles may be possibly de-ionising or super heating the energy sheild therefore inhibiting it.

Nuclear detonations produce huge amounts of energy in less than a second - superheated particles being one type of that energy, thermonuclear being another. It is entirely possible that superheated particles destabilise the shield :P
Anyway that's my opinion

[Edited on 11.10.2010 6:29 PM PST]

  • 11.10.2010 6:24 PM PDT
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well, you're all smarter than I am on this situation, you all have very brilliant points, and i think i now understand, so that's how a nuke is different, Macs are hella strong. Like said, they'll put a good hole in the planet, they could've at least somewhat damage the hull. Emp invlolved, it should be increased. But they again I'm not sure
THEORY EXPLAINED...at least i think

  • 11.10.2010 8:02 PM PDT

MAC rounds don't continue to accelerate once they are heading toward targets, they only accelerate down the length of the barrel. also im under the impression that the smaller MAC (the ones on frigates, destroyers) fire six hundred ton projectiles at some 35,000 m/s, thats not even a fraction of light speed. though its obvious that longer cruisers could have longer MAC barrels, therefore higher muzzle velocities i doubt they could ever reach anything like 1% of light speed (3,000,000 m/s).

however i doubt battles in halo are carried out at great distances for a number of reasons, firstly plasma looses energy and cools rather quickly once its left the ship, its not some magic material that stays hot forever. also MAC rounds are the fastest weapon the UNSC employ, archer missiles are just well...missiles so there range would be somewhat limited. think the battles are carried out at ranges of hundreds to thousands of kilometres, tops.

another thing worth noting, the nukes are likely going off in very very close proximity to the ships, like metres to hundreds of metres, what would be the point otherwise? another thing worth noting is maybe the UNSC nuclear weapons are directed, more like shaped charges, theoretically its possible to 'shape' a nuclear blast? also its impossible to judge how nukes are so effective against shields without understanding how they truely work, one can speculate but at the end of the day shields are probably the most fiction aspect of the haloverse which makes this question very hard to answer.

i for one thing that human ingenuity would prevail in the end against the covenant, because their technology is more scavanged, like the gou'old in stargate and the UNSC technology is our own, what happens when shields hit shields? could a shielded MAC round penetrate the shields of a covenant ship? or is there a way to modify a shield generator to generate a field that lets one pass straight through covenant shields? shields are afterall some sort of field, fields generally interact well with other fields, magnetic fields for example can interact with other magnetic fields without damaging either field. so maybe a shield could simply pass straight through another shield...?

  • 11.11.2010 5:47 AM PDT

For those of you talking about the nukes. For there to be a fireball or a satisfying explosion you would need air to feed the fire. Last I checked there was no air in space.

Please correct me if im weong.

[Edited on 11.11.2010 4:36 PM PST]

  • 11.11.2010 4:32 PM PDT

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read the forgotten spartan by rainman89

Dramatic effect, poetic license. You're definitely right, though.

  • 11.11.2010 4:33 PM PDT

there is gas in space star are made of it. a super nova is WAY stronger than anything in this game sense it is the strongest physical force ever recorded. a nuclear explosion produces an emp blast at high altitudes and energy shields are still a in the realm of sy-fi. also nukes work at a subatomic level and produce radiation which is a light wave. light is in space in vast quantities. the blast itself is a release of energy and when you see it on earth it make huge plumbs but in space it would act like seismic charges like in star wars but in every direction with no need of fire so no need of the scarce fluid.

  • 11.12.2010 5:26 AM PDT

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TL;DR version

MAC will punch a hole in something but not do as much damage to a shield.

Nuclear force is much larger (Area of effect-wise) but less penetrative on unshielded structures.

  • 11.12.2010 8:19 AM PDT


Posted by: IKillCovenant01
For those of you talking about the nukes. For there to be a fireball or a satisfying explosion you would need air to feed the fire. Last I checked there was no air in space.

Please correct me if im weong.


something i need to point out, nuclear explosions aren't fire. they do not in any way require air to function, vacuum detonations are different to atmospheric detonations in a lot of ways, such as the shape of the explosion, orbital detonations will be more spherical with no mushroom cloud, they won't have the devastating 'shockwave' which is what causes most of the damage in an 'airbursted' weapon, but put a nuclear weapon close to something in orbit and you just cannot argue with the several hundred million *C temperatures generated by the massive, sudden release of energy. there is no reason to believe the hull of a covenant ship can survive such temperatures. as far as im aware nothing can even come close to surviving those sorts of temperatures, steel for example would be vapourised, titanium would be vapourised, diamond would be vapourised, so one nuclear detonation close to a covenant ship would equal one well roasted covenant ship with a sizable hole in it.

  • 11.13.2010 8:27 PM PDT

So that's how it is. You all ought to know better than that.

Well without air, there is no medium for a shockwave to travel through. If you detonate a nuke in space, all you'll get is heat and radiation, which, without a medium to absorb them, will disapate at a much faster rate.

As for why a MAC doesn't work, maybe Sage nerfed it...

  • 11.13.2010 8:46 PM PDT
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Posted by: PLUT0NIUM 235
however i doubt battles in halo are carried out at great distances for a number of reasons, firstly plasma looses energy and cools rather quickly once its left the ship, its not some magic material that stays hot forever.


In the vacuum of space, superheated plasma would be perfectly insulated, and would lose little heat over time.

  • 11.13.2010 9:03 PM PDT

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In response to OP:

Well you do pose a good counter point, the force behind any object accelerated to +50% LS would be equal to/or greater than that of a 30 Megaton Bomb.

I suppose the only factor would be the EMP. The magnetism created by the blast would disrupt most electrical components (shield generators, etc.) therefore compromising the shields integrity.


Posted by: Agustus

Posted by: PLUT0NIUM 235
however i doubt battles in halo are carried out at great distances for a number of reasons, firstly plasma looses energy and cools rather quickly once its left the ship, its not some magic material that stays hot forever.


In the vacuum of space, superheated plasma would be perfectly insulated, and would lose little heat over time.


I'm pretty sure the vacuum of space is near absolute zero, at least a few hundred below zero (Fahrenheit or Celsius). So the plasma might have heat degradation issues, unless a high powered EMF could shape and insulate it.

I'm no engineer or scientist so this is all my own pontifications.

[Edited on 11.13.2010 9:21 PM PST]

  • 11.13.2010 9:16 PM PDT

This is similar to asking why an overcharged Plasma Pistol shot will disable the shields, but a single DMR shot won't.

We're talking about different kinds of weapons here.

EDIT: also, which MAC's are we talking about here? SMACs gut a ship in a far superior fashion than Nukes do, but a Frigates MAC is much smaller, Destroyers are somewhere in the middle, and Cruisers would probably be closer to SMACs on the spectrum.

Each of these MACs fire a different sized projectile, which would affect the damage done. The books mention a Destroyer's MAC being able to penetrate the shield, then requiring a second shot to kill the ship, whereas Frigates would need multiple shots to bring down the shields, and then multiple shots to kill the ship. I don't remember, any specifications given for Cruisers at any point, and I'm sure we all know that SMAC's are a one-hit-kill.

But, there are more variables than just the size of the MAC, and the ship it's being fired from. Different Covenant ships have different strength shields as well. There's allot of variables that go into it.

Additionally, there IS an EMP generated from the nukes, which is also another reason why nukes are effective against the shields. I would hope by now we would all know that the shields in the Halo-verse are disabled by EMP's.

[Edited on 11.13.2010 11:31 PM PST]

  • 11.13.2010 11:21 PM PDT

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