[GZG] Gzg-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 25

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 3:11 PM,  <gzg-l-request@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 10:34 PM, John Atkinson

Do the math on 20,000 tons of steel distributed over the surface of
sphere 1000km in diameter.  Quick back-of-the-envelope calculations
suggests that the majority of the debries would be small enough, and moving
slow enough, that it would be essentially micrometeor levels of damage, which
should be more or less ignored. There's always bad luck, but given the levels
of technology involved, killing or evading
meteors (whether natural or man-made) and shielding against
micrometors seems to be trivial. Unlike missles, debris chunks neither evade,
nor are particularly stealthy, nor do they actively produce ECM to avoid being
shot down.

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 8:41 AM, John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Do the math on 20,000 tons of steel distributed over the surface of

Assumes that all matter is evenly distributed over the surface which it
wouldn't really be of course. It's a good place to start but probably not the
best way to model what one could assume would be a
time-based explosive ripple blasting huge chunks of ship off as it
went up.

Not all pieces would be micrometeor sized bitlets - some may be huge
multi-ton chunks which would easily be dodged normally but in a combat
situation sh!t happens...

> Quick back-of-the-envelope calculations suggests that...

I don't disagree with anything you have to say other than, from a
gaming perspective, I'd like to have that mass blob of ex-ship do
something on the tabletop.  Even if it acts as a pseudo-screen if your
LOF tracks fire through it. Perhaps have it turn based so it only does this
for N turns and then dissipates...

D.