Pondering

[den]

I wonder how shaped charges would go in space.

Comments

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

Just fine, I'd wager. The pressures and temperatures of that insane jet of flame are so great that plus or minus standard atmospheric pressure shouldn't be a big enough difference to notice.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

The charge would travel about 6km per second, and deliver a pretty big kinetic whack on an enemy ship. It would be harder to dodge than a missile.

[marmoe.livejournal.com]

As tropism points out below, shaped charges as weapon systems are designed to detonate on contact or in the close vicinity of the target. You still need to get the projectile there with conventional means, i.e. at "low" speeds. Otherwise your projectile will disperse and / or cool. On the other hand, a 6 km per second bullet may still do the job you want it to do.

[swarm32.livejournal.com]

The shape charge. Bane of armored vehicles since 1942.

[camstone.livejournal.com]

They pretty much they go at speed, indefinately until they hit something. They've already been tested on various occassions... mostly as separation charges in what's known as a linear shaped charge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

As a Weapon In SPAAAAACE! I think they'd be pretty effective.

[camstone.livejournal.com]

Within the rules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty)... sure.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

They do use them, but I was thinking more along the lines as a projectile weapon.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[tropism.livejournal.com]

See my comment below about the nature of self-forging fragment shaped-charge weapons. This kind of device actually would be pretty great for use in space: it creates a projectile and shoots it out with a very high impulse, and it creates a kind of shotgun effect of smaller particles. You do want a relatively massive platform to deploy them from so that the projectile doesn't lose a lot of velocity, but the nature of the shaped charge should partially mitigate this, and you could always initiate a counterexplosion antipodal to the weapon if you want to make a lot of small one-shot mines.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[tropism.livejournal.com]

First off, I'd just like to note that the shaped-charge weapon in the video is a very *specific* form of shaped charge weaponry; one that uses the charge to create a self-forging fragment. Standard shaped charges are generally meant to go off in contact or close proximity to their target; self-forging fragment weapons are designed to actually create a projectile by warping a metal plate with their blast.

Either kind'd be great in space, and self-forging fragment weapons would be ideal for low-use point-defense or captor mines. The jet would break up a lot more by the time it hit its target, but it's space, so that's actually a *bonus*.