Just a quick question: have triggerless fusion warheads been decanonized? They show up in SS3 as a thing at TL 10. However, they'd render the TL 12 nuclear damper obsolete before it was even invented. You'd have to follow the missile in to impact to prevent a detonation, and then the other missiles in the salvo would get you.
Triggerless fusion warheads
- Thread starter Carlobrand
- Start date
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
I thought the damper worked by focusing the positive end on the missles and causeing a runaway but sub-optimal reaction, ie it made the warheads prematurely detonate, or go "squid"
Focusing the positive end on deuterium does nothing if the deuterium is not at a pressure and temperature close enough to support fusion. Triggerless means a fusion reaction is being triggered by something other than a fission blast, so no radioactive material in the warhead for the damper to affect.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The damper can reduce the strong nuclear force.
Weaken it enough and fusion is not going to happen.
Weaken it enough and fusion is not going to happen.
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
or strengthen it enough that the bomb blows itself apart before it really gets going. play with the base laws of physics enough, the deuterium becomes unstable enough that it will fiss away without needing to reach fusion pressures.
Deuterium? Hydrogen nucleus with a neutron added? That stuff is pretty stable, I thought. Whole point of fission versus fusion is that the heavy nuclei release energy when they break apart while the light nuclei release energy when you squish them together.
Dampers work on heavy nuclei. Per the description, they cause heavy radioactive nuclei to shed neutrons to "render fission warheads useless". They make the radioactive material decay more quickly - or keep it from decaying, in the case of a damper box used to store those californium bullets.
In this case, we're talking about deuterium and fusion, not fission. Deuterium has no wish to decay. If you want to stop the boom, you've got to keep it from fusing with its neighbor - which is all well and good, but while you're holding your suppressing beam on one missile, there's a bunch of other missiles from the same salvo that you aren't doing anything about. Passing the beam quickly through the deuterium doesn't do anything to the deuterium, not unless the beam is there in the exact instant that the deuterium tries to fuse. You can't hold one beam simultaneously on 30 missiles, so it seems like those laser-initiated fusion bombs aren't being affected by dampers - except for one missile out of the entire salvo.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
There is a canon example of using a nuclear damper to inhibit a ship's fusion reactor to prevent it taking off.
As has been pointed out on both threads many times:
increase strong force - fission less likely, fusion more likely
decrease strong force - fission more likely, fusion less likely.
As has been pointed out on both threads many times:
increase strong force - fission less likely, fusion more likely
decrease strong force - fission more likely, fusion less likely.
Not to mention the fluff about using Nuclear Dampers to decontaminate areas that have suffered nuclear bombardment...
Well, erroneous semi-hard science. About as good as it got back before the internet put a ton of knowledge at our fingertips.
Which brings us back to the question that triggered the thread. Neither High Guard nor MT reflect any point at which dampers become obsolete against fusion warheads. SS3 gives us triggerless fusion warheads at TL 10, seems to branch off Book 2 and a universe without dampers - or at least without dampers as a defense. Where else are these triggerless warheads showing up?
Edit: maybe not so semi-hard. Interesting physics discussion.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=37903
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
For the nth time - a nuclear damper can prevent fusion reactions. 
It doesn't matter if it is a fission-fusion or a straight up fusion - if you inhibit the strong force there is no fusion reaction - hence the continued efficacy of nuclear dampers vs nuclear missiles in HG.
It doesn't matter if it is a fission-fusion or a straight up fusion - if you inhibit the strong force there is no fusion reaction - hence the continued efficacy of nuclear dampers vs nuclear missiles in HG.
For the nth time - a nuclear damper can prevent fusion reactions.
It doesn't matter if it is a fission-fusion or a straight up fusion - if you inhibit the strong force there is no fusion reaction - hence the continued efficacy of nuclear dampers vs nuclear missiles in HG.
For the nth time, stopping fusion in one missile does not stop the other 29. The power of the damper was its ability to neutralize fission warheads with a brief pass. In the case of fusion, the warhead is suppressed only while the damper is focused on the missile. If it's focused when the missile tries to detonate, the missile fails - but there's an entire salvo of other missiles trying to do the same thing at the same time.
Unless you have some argument that says the deuterium load will forever more be incapable of fusing after a brief pass of the damper, we've still got a problem. The damper's a focused node, not a shield. It can't be simultaneously in 30 places - or however many places survive the other defenses to reach that point - at the same time.
That's easy, the Damper breaks the Fire triangle..... In that it alters the neutron count such that the device misfires.
Okay, well, clearly I'm not getting an answer to the original question, so, moving right along ...
No, you got the perfect answer, in that we have conflicting assumptions.
In that with the removal of a fission trigger doesn't imply that a increased neutron/xray flux isn't required for detonation. Which follows that a Nuclear damper fundamentally alters the population of said flux rendering the device non-militarily effective.
Nore does the rules state how many times any specific device is exposed to the effects of the damper. Nor the number of nodes that can be generated at any one time by the damper.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The devil is in the detail.
Striker provides rules for TL13+ battlefield nuclear dampers - they project a field that can neutralise 12d of warheads per Striker turn, increasing to 28d at TL14 and 32d at TL15. These are much smaller devices than the ship mounted screens too and require the equivalent of 1EP - the TL12 ship damper is 10EPs so is that ten projectors or the equivalent?
A TL 15 factor 9 damper screen is the equivalent EP wise of 90 battlefield projectors - that's 90 x 32d of missiles stopped.
Striker provides rules for TL13+ battlefield nuclear dampers - they project a field that can neutralise 12d of warheads per Striker turn, increasing to 28d at TL14 and 32d at TL15. These are much smaller devices than the ship mounted screens too and require the equivalent of 1EP - the TL12 ship damper is 10EPs so is that ten projectors or the equivalent?
A TL 15 factor 9 damper screen is the equivalent EP wise of 90 battlefield projectors - that's 90 x 32d of missiles stopped.
Um, no offense, but no. Reread the initial post:
So far, no answer. Instead, some interesting speculation, the assertion that dampers stop fusion - which they do - and the assertion that this by some means can affect salvoes of missiles at more or less the same time. I had actually hoped for someone to point out where the triggerless fusion warheads show up in canon, but no one seems interested in going in that direction. Not that this direction isn't very interesting, but ...
So, yielding to the momentum:
CT Book 4
Nuclear Dampers: A common term, dampers units actually may be used to increase or decrease the stability of atomic nuclei. Projecting from two separate stations, the intersection of the two transmitted broadcasts produces a series of nodes and anti-nodes. In the area of the nodes, the strong nuclear force is enhanced, making the nucleus more stable. In the area of the anti-nodes, the strong nuclear force is depressed, making the nucleus much less stable. Antinodes are focused on incoming nuclear warheads, causing them to shed neutrons at low energy levels, rendering the warhead inoperable. The range of the damper field is proportional to the
distance separating the two projectors. At tech level 13, the ratio is 100:l (thus a separation of 50 meters would yield a range of 5 kilometers). At tech level 14 and above, the ratio is 1000:1.
CT Book 5
Nuclear Dampers are used to suppress the strong nuclear force, making atomic nuclei shed neutrons at low energy levels and rendering fission warheads useless. Dampers must be focussed on incoming nuclear missiles and depend on an integral fire control system for efficiency.
Striker
Nuclear dampers are capable of projecting a field which suppresses the strong nuclear force, which causes nuclear warheads to decay rapidly and renders them harmless; the projector must focus on a warhead for only a fraction of a second.
MT Referee Manual
Nuclear dampers interfere with subatomic nuclear forces: when a nuclear warhead passes through a damper field, the warhead sheds neutrons at very low energies, which renders the warhead harmless after a very short exposure. ...
Nuclear Dampers: Screens that project a series of nodes and anti-nodes where the strong nuclear force is enhanced or degraded, rendering nuclear warheads ineffective.
A node is an intersection point. We find the damper repeatedly described as a device that projects nodes and anti-nodes - intersection points. In most, it's described as consisting of two projectors that affect targets at their point of intersection. This is not a screen in the manner of a Star Trek shield. It projects a beam of some sort, and where the two beams intersect, the strong nuclear force is influenced.
Now, as to projecting Striker rules onto High Guard, I might point out a key difference between the two systems. Striker occurs on a world, where - assuming earth-like gravity - warheads are falling at a bit under the speed of sound. Missiles fly faster, but not significantly enough to match High Guard missile speeds which, assuming the canon 5G missile, can reach tens to hundreds of kilometers per second. Since the Striker damper range is 1000 times the separation between the units, shipboard dampers based on a Striker unit are likely limited to ranges of hundreds of kilometers. I doubt very seriously that they could approach the same performance against targets closing at ten or a hundred KPS that they enjoy against targets dropping at 600 KPH, so using Striker rules for High Guard intercepts is a big stretch.
Nonetheless, High Guard dampers are able to intercept a whole lotta missiles. There is no rule limiting how many they can affect. Could be one very, very quick machine (or pair of machines), since it needs only a fraction of a second to turn bomb fuel into something that doesn't go boom. Could be a collection of machines.
Still, to support the argument that these things affect triggerless fusion warheads, one needs to either argue that they have a permanent effect that requires the same fraction of a second exposure, or one needs to argue that they can keep a node on each and every missile coming in, regardless of the number. Well, at least enough of them to achieve the same statistical results shown in the High Guard rules - no matter how many missiles were inbound.
Thing is, hydrogen works as a boom fuel too. Not as well, requires a lot more to make it work, but if I think you're going to disable a missile by making deuterium shed its sole neutron - which I think is a bit tougher than making a radioactive do the same, but we'll put that bit aside - and I have TL12+ technology to work with, I'll find a way to make protium work. What it won't do easily in a reactor, it might be more willing to do under more extreme influences. In a Traveller universe that gives us machines to suppress or enhance the strong nuclear force and ways to make fusion bombs that can make fusion happen without a fission trigger, while fitting into a 50 kg missile, that's not exactly a huge leap.
I can't find anything about triggerless fusion except the Special Supplement 3 reference and a mention in SOM, so I'm guessing the issue hasn't actually been explored in canon.
The "igniterless" fusion still needs a ball of high pressure hydrogen. Probably tritium. Reduce the binding force, and let it decay super fast, and when the laser igniter turns on, fizzle.
Or, turn it way up, and collapse it early... helium and lithium don't fuse as easily...
Or, turn it way up, and collapse it early... helium and lithium don't fuse as easily...
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Yep- shed tritium one neutron, boom is fizzle.
