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Subject: Could MAC guns be used for large scale terrestrial bombardment?
  • gamertag: Poy357
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Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: Poy Poy
A SMAC is just a giant sniper rifle.

There's no point in bombarding a place only at one location.


And that one location would be vaporized in a very large radius. You know asteroid impact craters? Same thing.

Collateral would be the big concern.


Yes, but enough power to punch through the hulls of 2 covenant cruisers(?) and disable a third means something.

I'm talking about orbital platforms here, not the ones you find on board ships.

I know that's alot of energy, but if that energy is concentrated at one point, I would assume that the round would puncture the crust of the planet like a drill. Not cause an explosion on the scale of a nuclear bomb.

My reasoning is this: You drop a bomb on the ground. You get a nice hole. You fire a sniper rifle on the ground. You don't get an explosion, you get a much smaller, yet somewhat deeper and concentrated hole.

  • 04.05.2012 5:14 AM PDT

"I may not be perfect, but always been true."


Posted by: Poy Poy
Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: Poy Poy
A SMAC is just a giant sniper rifle.

There's no point in bombarding a place only at one location.


And that one location would be vaporized in a very large radius. You know asteroid impact craters? Same thing.

Collateral would be the big concern.


Yes, but enough power to punch through the hulls of 2 covenant cruisers(?) and disable a third means something.

I'm talking about orbital platforms here, not the ones you find on board ships.

I know that's alot of energy, but if that energy is concentrated at one point, I would assume that the round would puncture the crust of the planet like a drill. Not cause an explosion on the scale of a nuclear bomb.

My reasoning is this: You drop a bomb on the ground. You get a nice hole. You fire a sniper rifle on the ground. You don't get an explosion, you get a much smaller, yet somewhat deeper and concentrated hole.


Reach shows an Orbital Defense Platform shooting at a Corvette (Sword Base ending cutscene), the place that the round hit seemed just fine.

  • 04.05.2012 5:44 AM PDT
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Posted by: RKOSNAKE

Reach shows an Orbital Defense Platform shooting at a Corvette (Sword Base ending cutscene), the place that the round hit seemed just fine.

On the other hand, it was a low-power shot. But I believe that shooting a MAC round to a planet isn't exactly comparable to a sniper rifle shot. For example, shooting a sniper rifle through a soft target has no effects, but shooting at a hard target makes it use all its energy to a much wider area.

What comes to MACs, first of all, the shape of the round should be thought about. I personally don't know how they are shaped, but as they are mainly used in space encounters, it makes me think that they don't have the same type of sharp shape as regular bullets because aerodynamics don't matter in space. They could very well just be flat cylinders. This would be beneficial as at such high speeds, you start hoping for a bit flatter structure in order for more energy to transfer to the target.

Secondly, with hitting a planet we are basically talking about kilometers worth of bedrock. If you happen to have a weapon, you can go and test out what happens when shooting at a rock. I personally don't know, but I imagine not much will be left of the bullet and the bullet hole is a bit wider than the actual bullet. Even with 0.04c, you won't get very far into the ground as a pressure of 7 PPa (really rough estimation) flattens it immediately. If I had to throw a rough estimate for how far the bullet gets into the bedrock, 300 meters would be my highest. That's already about 200 times the length of the round. But 196 EJ on a 300 meter journey sounds like quite a lot of energy per meter.

In the end, while the first thing that comes into mind is something like a sniper rifle shot because of some similarities. There are still a lot of differences in shooting a MAC round versus shooting a sniper rifle bullet. Even the atmosphere would basically be like a huge wall to the MAC round that penetrates about hundred kilometers and 5000 kilograms of air in eight milliseconds. That's quite a lot of atmospheric pressure if you ask me.

So, while the sniper rifle effect sounds like a logical thing, the whole situation is completely different with a MAC round. That makes me believe that, while it wouldn't be exactly like a huge meteor impact, it would definitely do quite a lot of damage where it hits.

[Edited on 04.05.2012 6:44 AM PDT]

  • 04.05.2012 6:43 AM PDT
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Posted by: goldhawk
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Posted by: RKOSNAKE

The proof I saw for that was a list with 7 exatons= energy needed to melt crust. However, based on the wording and that just above it there was the energy needed to evaporate all of Earth's water, I am thinking they meant you need 7 exatons to melt all of Earth's crust, not just gorge out a canyon. And considering several Imperial warships do the exact same thing in one of the books (gorge huge canyons into the ground) then the Forerunners still have a worthy opponent.

  • 04.05.2012 9:02 AM PDT

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Like in one of the rooster teeth episodes They Used one to Destroy a whole skyscraper so It could be used for buildings and only pin point shots But for a bombardment you would need a lot of them.

  • 04.05.2012 9:15 AM PDT
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Posted by: EZcompany2ndsqd
Like in one of the rooster teeth episodes They Used one to Destroy a whole skyscraper so It could be used for buildings and only pin point shots But for a bombardment you would need a lot of them.

Red vs Blue isn't exactly Halo canon and I believe it wasn't physically accurate either. It was there for the sake of awesomeness.

  • 04.05.2012 9:22 AM PDT

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Posted by: tsassi2

Posted by: EZcompany2ndsqd
Like in one of the rooster teeth episodes They Used one to Destroy a whole skyscraper so It could be used for buildings and only pin point shots But for a bombardment you would need a lot of them.

Red vs Blue isn't exactly Halo canon and I believe it wasn't physically accurate either. It was there for the sake of awesomeness.


Yeah I know, but since mac cannons are more for accuracy its not impossible. That was just an example I could think of where they used it for more then a ship. But I understand what you mean

  • 04.05.2012 9:26 AM PDT


Posted by: grey101

Posted by: HipLunchBox13
I'm not sure if this is mentioned in any of the books...
But 500 years from now, isn't it a fair assumption to make that atomic bombs become more efficient?


If you read the books you would know the answer to this.


I want too =O
Maybe when I am finally finished school.

  • 04.05.2012 7:01 PM PDT

Per Audacia Ad Astra

I could see that working for a precision bombing easily. But I don't think we have a need to use something that powerful yet.

  • 04.05.2012 7:04 PM PDT

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