Stutterwarp as a WMD?

[LeagueOfSuns]

Originally Posted by McPerth

Even so, if the ship was warping (and so probably inmune to this can) to near the planet, so that it would not miss, even if the can hit it, I guess the explosión would be strong enough as to produce disaster, and even if only a small part of those exploding gases reach atmosphere, effects would be far from pelasant.

I don't say it would be easy, but it would be posible (if politically accepted)...

The collision energy of the empty soda can (6.75 x 10^10 joules) is about equal to a small tactical nuke exploding in contact with the hull. Realistically the defenders would probably use something a little bigger, say the equivalent of a large tactical nuke.

I agree that the defenders certainly can't hit the ship with any size object unless they can stop it's stutterwarp drive first, so it's regular 2300 space combat up until that point. The attacking ship is stoppable, but not certain to be stopped. If it's a military operation, it could have escorts as well. Terrorists would probably only be able to commit the one ship. Given the constraints on accelerating the ship, however, this would be a fairly extreme Hail Mary operation, and one that's not likely to be practical in an actual conflict.